mM^v^ 



/ '^i-i 



.^N^- '"S-: 



* oX 






.^ 



^ ,A^ 



^s<SX\.,,, 






v^''^. '1^ 









^ ,^.-.. ^< 



<^ ^ " » .^ 






^^' 















.^^ -^^^ 






\^^ 



O^ a '' " 









vO c 



"^>. ,xN^' 






,0- ,.<'^ 



r-^ 



>. ^• 



^^. v^' 



/■ s . ^^ 



:^ >■ 



.0- 



V V 



A^ 



>'/> 



-0^ 



« 1 A " \\ 






-/■ 



.^^^ 



^, v•^' 






*>', 



^-\.^- 
.# % 



i^)^^ .^>^^ 




^^%, 



" * /*%- 



-r' 



,X^^' ^ 






:■■'^'- 









'■ « 









.V 









,.^^\ 






V 



Oq. 



-/i. 















-x^- 



.\> 



^\^^' ■ V 



ROME AND POMPEII 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 



THE RIVIERA: Ancient and 

Modern, By Charles Lentheric. 
Translated by Charles West, M.D. 
With Maps and Plans. 







^ 



ROME AND POMPEII 



Hrcb^oloaical IRamblee 



GASTON BOISSIER 

OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY 



TRANSLATED BY 

D. HAVELOCK FISHER 

/ ' 



WITH MAPS AND PLANS 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

27 AND 29 West 23D St. 
1896 



1 



^'^^■^ 



\ \ /)4V 



/^- 



*) 



{^All rights resei-ved.'\ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

PAOES 

The Fohum ,1-50 

I. Importance of the Forum down to the end of 
the Empire — Its condition at the beginning of the 
present century — Signor Pietro Rosa's excavations 
— M. Dutert's restoration essay — Signor Fiorelli's 
administration, 8-14 

II. The Via Sacra between the Arch of Titus and 
the Forum — The Temple of Vesta — The dwelling 
of the Vestals {Atrium Vestcn) — The Vestals and the 
Christian nuns — View of the Palatine, . . . 15-40 

III. The Forum of the Empire — How we have 
been enabled to recognise and designate its chief 
monuments — Statins and the statue of Domitian — 
The Temple of Caesar — The Basilica Julia — Temples 
of Saturn and Castor — Those of Vespasian and 
Concord — East side of the Forum — Centre of the 
Forum — The Clivus capitolinus .... 41-63 

J) 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

IV. Impression first produced by the Forum — 
Absence of symmetry — Its small extent— The very 
different uses it served — Political assemblies — How- 
orators made themselves heard in it — How it held 
all the people who came together there, . . . 53-66 



CHAPTEE II. 
The Palatine 67-137 

I. How the excavations on the Palatine came 
to be undertaken — Roma quadrata and the walls of 
Romulus — The Temple of Jupiter Stator — Remains 
of the epoch of the Kings — Antiquity of writing 
among the Romans, and the consequences to be 
drawn from it — The Palatine under the Republic — 
Why excavations are always so prolific in Rome, . 71-86 

II. The house of Augustus on the Palatine — 
How, little by little, it became a palace — What 
remains of it — Employment of marble in the 
Imperial epoch — New processes in the art of 
building — The Palace of Tiberius — That of Caligula 
— The cryptoporticus where Caligula perished — The 
house of Livia and its paintings — The Palace of 
Nero, 87-111 

III. The Flavii and their policy — Description of 
Doniitian's palace — The palace of Severus — The 
Imperial box at the Great Circus — Lodgings of 

the soldiers and servants, .... 111-129 

IV. Aspect of the hill in the third century — It 
contains the edifices of all times — Monuments of 
the Imperial epoch — Differences between the palaces 

of then and now — Beauty of the whole, . . 129-137 



T-'^ 



CONTENTS. Vll 



CHAPTER III. 

PAGES 

The Catacombs 139-213 

I. The importance which. Christians attached to 
sepulture — The Catacombs their work, and not 
old abandoned quarries — How they were induced 
to hollow them out — Hypogea of different religions 
in the Eoman Campagna — Rules adopted by the 
Church for burial, 142-152 

II. First impression produced by a visit to the 
Catacombs — The immensity of these cities of the 
dead, and consequences to be drawn from it — Rapid 
diffusion of Christianity — Religion separates itself 
from the family and the country — The Catacombs 
the most ancient monument of Christianity at Rome 
— Mementoes of the times of persecution contained 

in them — Mementoes of the daj'^s of triumph, 152-161 

III. The inscriptions and paintings in the 
Catacombs — Character of the most ancient inscrip- 
tions — The birth oc Christian art — The first sub- 
jects treated by the artists of the Catacombs — 
Imitation of antique types — Reproduction of 
Christian subjects — Symbolism— Origin of historical 
painting — To what extent the Christian artists 
adhered to antique art, 162-177 

IV. The cemetery of Calixtus — Signer Rossi 
succeeds in finding it — The indications which enable 
him to discover the tombs of the martyrs— Works 
carried out after the time of Constantine in the 
celebrated crypts — Graffiti of pilgrims — Why the 
cemetery took the name of Calixtus — History of 
this Pope, according to the- PMlosophumena — Why 
the Popes of the third century were buried in the 
cemetery of Calixtus, and how it became the pro- 
perty of the Church — Discovery of the papal crji-pt, 177-192 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PACKS 

V. Chief results of Signor Rossi's discoveries — 
His new opinions on the origin and history of the 
Christian cemeteries — They begin by being private 
property — As such they are under the protection of 
the law — How they extended — How ih&y became 
the property of the Church — First relations of the 
Church with the civil authority — Character of these 
relations — The primitive Church and the great 
families — How advantage may be drawn from the 
acts of the martyrs, 192-213 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Hadeian's Villa 215-292 

I. The Emperor Hadrian — The different judg- 
ments passed on him — The prince and the man — 
The reasons why he was not loved — His liking for 
the Greeks — Travelling in ancient times — 
Hadrian's journeyings, 221-240 

II. The site of Hadrian's villa — Magnificence of 
construction — The Emperor's purpose in building 
it — Parts which can be recognised — The Vale of 
Tempe — The Poecile — Canopus — The private 
dwelling — The Natatorium — The reception apart- 
ments — The Piazza d'oro — The Basilica — The 
theatres — The libraries — The public lecture-halls — 

Hell 241-268 

III. Did the Romans understand and love Nature ? 
— The reasons they had for leaving the town — 
Horace at Tibur — Liking of everybody for the 
country — How Pliny the Younger lived there — His 
Adllas — His gardens — Sites preferred by the 
ancients — The view from the Poecile, . . 268-292 



CONTEXTS. IX 

CHAPTEE V. 

PAGES 

OsTiA 293-334 

I. Modem Ostia — Aspect of tlie plaiu by wliich 
ancient Ostia is covered — How tlie town came to be 
abandoned — The first excavations made there — 
Signor Visconti's labours — Discovery of the Street 
of Tombs — The house known as the Imperial 
Palace — The great temple and the street leading 
towards the Tiber — The shops situated along the 
river, 295-306 

II. Why the port of Ostia was founded — The 
free distribution of corn in Eome — The difficulty 
of provisioning Rome — Creation of the port of 
Claudius — The port of Trajan — The Imperial 
Palace — The town of Partus — The magnificence of 
Ostia and Partus, 306-325 

III. The religious monuments at Ostia — Intro- 
duction and swift progress of Christianity — The 
Xenodochium of Pammachius — Prelude to the 
Odavuis of Minutius Felix — Death of St Monica, 325-334 

CHAPTEE VI. 
Pompeii 335-485 

I. The excavations at Pompeii under Signor 
Fiorelli — Mementoes of its ancient history that have 
been found — What remains to be cleared — Ought 
the works that have been begun to be continued ? 
— Recent discoveries — The fresco of Orpheus — - 
Account-books of the Banker Jucundus — The new 
Fulloniea, 335-354 



CONTEXTS. 



II. Pompeii's chief lesson to us — Country life in 
the Eoman Empire — The difficulty of acquainting 
ourselves with it — How Pompeii puts it before our 
eyes — The whole Empire repeats the customs of 
Borne — The aristocracj' of Pompeii— Cluiracter- 
istics of Pompeian houses, .... 354-369 



III. The paintings of Pompeii, according to 
Doctor Helbig's works — The large number of 
mythological pictures — Character of these pictures 
— The paintings of Pompeii not original — ^Hiy 
critics of the first century treat the paintings of 
their time so severely — From what schools did 
Pompeian artists borrow the subjects of their 
pictures ? — Alexandrian or Hellenistic painting — 
Room pictures — (reneral character of Hellenistic 
painting — How far did Pompeian artists faithfully 
reproduce their models ? — What is the particular 
merit of the paintings at Pompeii ? . . . 370-398 



IV. "Whence the resemblances come that are 
remarked between the paintings at Pompeii and 
the poetry of the Augustan age — The painters and 
the poets inspired by the same subjects — Latin 
literature imitates the poetic school of Alexandria — 
Catullus — Virgil — Propertius — Ovid — Ditferences 
between the painters of Pompeii and the Roman 
poets — Painting never became Roman — Repugnance 
of the Pompeian artists to handle subjects drawn 
from the history or the legends of Rome — Is 
Pompeii really a Greek town ?— National character 
of the poetry of the Augustan age, . . . 399-419 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGES 

V. The burghers of Pompeii —The poor — Where 
did they live ? — Inns and taverns — Occupations and 
pleasures common to the poor and the rich — The 
municipal elections — The shows — How may we 
become acquainted with the inner life of the 
Pompeiansl — The inscriptions and graffiti — The 
services they render us, 419-435 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE FOEUM. 

I HAVE often heard it said that it is dangerous to return 
after long absence to persons and places one has much 
loved. We seldom find them again as we remember to 
have seen them. The charm flies with years, tastes 
and ideas change, the faculty of admiring wanes ; there 
is a danger of our remaining unmoved before what trans- 
ported us in our youth, and, it may be, that instead 
of the pleasure we sought, only a disappointment awaits 
us. This disenchantment is the more fatal in that it 
usually spreads from the present to the past. Do what 
we will, it ends by imparting itself to our old impres- 
sions, and taints those stores of memories which 
should be faithfully treasured in our hearts for life's 
decline. 

And this is the peril to which a traveller exposes 
himself who, not having seen Eome for many years, 
determines to go back there. How many things have 
happened in these few years ! Eome has changed 
masters; the old town of the Popes has become the 

A 



2 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

capital of the kingdom of Italy. How has she lent her- 
self to the change ? What effect has this new order of 
things, so different from the old, produced upon her ? 
Has she lost anything by it, and shall we find her again 
as we left her ? This is the first question we ask our- 
selves on returning to Rome. It is difficult not to feel 
engrossed by it ; and directly the railway lands us upon 
the immense piazza of the Baths of Diocletian — once so 
calm, now so bustling and noisy — we cannot help 
looking round on all sides with uneasy curiosity. 

The first impression is not favourable, it must be 
owned. On leaving the terminus, we traverse a new 
quarter, which offends by its likeness to every other 
new quarter in the world. Is Eome, then, in peril of 
becoming a commonplace town ? "We see vulgarly ele- 
gant houses, like those we have seen in other cities ; we 
pass an immense building — a species of barracks, with- 
out character or style,, destined to become a public office, 
and which produces a pitiful effect beside the grand 
palaces of the sixteenth century ; and, as we go through 
broad streets and narrow lanes flooded with a burning 
sun, we remember that, even in the time of Nero, who 
rebuilt the old town on a vaster plan, boobies much 
admired the splendour of the new building, but sensible 
people could not help regretting the old narrow, crooked 
streets, where they always found so much shade and 
freshness.^ This is hardly an encouraging beginning, 
and what remains seems at first in keeping with it. On 
descending from the Quirinal to the Corso, we still find 
many striking changes. The Corso, with the streets that 

^ Tacitus, Ann., XV. 43: Eranttamen qui crederent vcterem illam 
formam. salubritati magis conduxisse. 



THE FORUM. 6 

cross it, from the piazza di Venezia to the piazza del Popolo, 
was always the most animated place in the town. It 
appears to me to have become still more animated, and 
that its population is no longer quite the same. Priests, 
and especially monks, are more rare, and the glance of 
those who remain does not seem to me so assured, nor 
their countenances so proud ; they evidently no longer 
feel themselves the masters. Among the people who 
have replaced them, one is surprised to see many who 
walk fast, and appear to have something to do, which 
used to be seldom the case. Nor do they belong to the 
old inhabitants of Kome. They are generally employes 
of the ministries, or public office clerks ; all come from 
outside, brinjrinfT with them new customs. At the verv 
hour when, according to the old saying, only dogs and 
Englishmen were seen in the streets, we meet these offi- 
cials, active, busy, elbowing those who are in their way, to 
the intense amazement of the old Romans, who cannot 
understand people going out at the hour of the siesta, or 
hurrying when it is hot. As evening approaches, the 
bustle increases. There is a moment, towards six 
o'clock, when the street belongs to the news-vendors. 
They deafen you with their cries ; they address you, 
they pursue you. Newspapers abound in Eome. There 
are journals of every size and shade of opinion — more 
violent than moderate, as usual — which bid for clients 
by the smallness of their price and the vivacity of their 
polemics. How far are we from the time when only 
that good, carefully expurgated Giornale di Eoma 
was!^ read — that friend of legitimate governments, 
which never knew of revolutions until several weeks 
after^ they had taken place ! Must we believe that 



4 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

this race of sceptics and scoffers, accustomed and 
indifferent to everything, astonished and indignant at 
nothing, which used to answer the reformers of all 
parties with a che volete ? or a chi lo sa ? has suddenly 
gone raving mad over politics ? It is a change one has 
great difficulty in understanding. And it is impossible 
to master one's surprise when the very signboards are 
seen to contain professions of faith — the barbers pomp- 
ously styling themselves parruchiere nazionale — and 
when one reads the electoral appeals and the demo- 
cratic bombast with which the walls are covered. There 
are certainly many innovations which run great risk of 
not being to the taste of everybody. We cannot help 
asking ourselves what will be thought and said by those 
zealous admirers, whom Eome has possessed in all ages, 
who would have her remain stationary ; who say she is 
being spoilt when the least thing is changed ; and who 
already began to cry out that all was lost when a too 
zealous magistrate took it into his head to have the 
streets a little better swept, and to light them dimly 
with a few lamps. 

But let us hasten to reassure them. All is not so much 
overturned as they may think, and the change is more 
upon the surface than in the depths. The quarters of 
the people have nearly everywhere kept their old aspect. 
If, for example, after descending the Corso, you continue 
your walk beyond the piazza di Venezia, through the 
steep streets leading to the Forum, you find old Eome 
intact. These, indeed, are the same houses we used to 
see — as old and as dirty. The Madonnas have re- 
mained in their places above the doors, and in the 
evening a lantern is still piously lit before them. If 



THE FORUM. 5 

you happen to raise your eyes higher, towards the wide, 
curtainless windows, you are sure to find enough rags 
spread out to content the most exigent friends of the 
picturesque and of local colour. In the cellar-like 
taverns, with their great open doors, players are still 
leaning carelessly with their elbows on the tables, beside 
flasks of Orvieto, with greasy cards in their hands. 
As for the ostcric which skirt the street, I do not think 
they can have much changed in appearance since the 
Eoman Empire ; and I muse, as I behold them, on those 
unctce popince whose rejoicing smell so gladdened the 
slave of Horace. 

So, with a little good-will, here we are in the very 
midst of antiquity. If we wish the illusion still 
more complete, if we desire to enjoy for a mo- 
ment what might be called the c^enuine sensation 
of Eome — that which our fathers felt in visiting 
it, and which was described by Chateaubriand and 
Goethe — let us go a little further, beyond the houses 
and the boundary: for, in order to insure a better 
understanding of it, it is as well to leave them behind 
us. If you like, we will pass through the Porta 
Pia, and follow the ancient Via Nomcntata. Saluting, 
as we go by, the basilica of St Agnes and the round 
temple that served for the sepulture of Constantine's 
daughter, we get to the Teverone, and cross it by a 
very curious bridge, still bearing traces of work dating 
from the Middle Ages. A few steps further on, to 
the right, rises a hill of small extent and height. 
It must be climbed with respect, since it bears a 
great name in history: it is the Holy Mountain. 
Here it was that, more than two thousand years 



6 AHCIIiEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

gone -by, Democracy gained one of its first victories 
using, in order to obtain it, a means it is still very 
fond of employing — the strike. One fine day, the 
Eoman army — that is to say, all the sound-bodied 
population — leaving the camps to which the Consuls 
insisted on confining it, came and settled on this 
mountain, determined to remain there so long as its 
conditions should be refused. In order to win, it 
only had to wait. The Aristocracy, alarmed at its 
solitude, became weary of resistance, and allowed 
the people to institute the tribuneship. How many 
memories present themselves to the mind from the 
summit of this hill ! It was in this immense un- 
dulating plain which now strikes the eye that, according 
to the expression of an historian, the Eomans served 
their apprenticeship for the conquest of the world. 
Every year they had to fight the energetic little 
tribes peopling it, and furious battles took place 
there for the possession of a hovel or the sacking 
of a cornfield. There it was that, during a struggle of 
many centuries, they acquired experience of war, the 
habit of obedience, and ability to command. When 
they crossed those mountains which frame in the 
horizon on all sides, in order to spread themselves over 
the rest of Italy, their education was completed, and 
they possessed the virtues which enabled them to con- 
quer all. Since then, how many glorious events ! 
Since then, how many times have tho'se great roads, 
whose direction is still followed by the line of tombs 
that border them, witnessed the return of the triumph- 
ant legions ! How many illustrious names are recalled 
to the memory by those fragments of aqueducts, and 



THE FORUM. 7 

those ruined monuments which cover the plain ! And we 
have here the advantage that, these great memories once 
revived, there is nothing to divert us from them. In 
fertile, well-peopled countries, full of bustle and move- 
ment, the present unceasingly snatches us away from the 
past. How can we muse and ponder, when the spectacle 
of human activity craves our attention at every moment, 
and from all sides the noises of life reach our ears ? 
Here, on the contrary, all is silence and contemplation. 
As far as the eye can range, nothing is seen but a naked 
plain, sparsely covered with thin grass, without trees, 
except some scattered parasol pines, and, beyond a few 
taverns for sportsmen, devoid of houses. The landscape 
only strikes as a whole. It is a general monotony, or 
rather harmony, where everything melts and blends. 
Nothing draws the attention ; no detail stands out with 
undue prominence, nor jars. I know no spot on earth 
where one can allow one's thoughts to carry one away 
more completely, and absolutely give Time the slip ; 
as Titus Livius so aptly expresses it : " Where it is 
easier for the soul to become antique and contempor- 
aneous with the monuments it gazes upon." The Eoman 
Campagna has kept this advantage in perfection, nor is 
it easy to foresee when it will lose it. Many projects 
are made to render it healthy and people it, but 
Death has entered so deeply into this exhausted soil, 
that he will probably not be dispossessed without 
trouble. In the meantime, let us enjoy the privilege 
which this country preserves of putting us, better than 
any other, in communication with the past. Whatever 
effort Kome may make to adorn and embellish herself, 
and be on a level with the fashion of the day, it is 



8 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Antiquity one goes there to seek above all things, and, 
thank God ! it is still to be found. With those great 
ruins with which she is strewn, and the vast deserted 
plains that surround her, she has not, nor will she, for a 
long time to come, be able to give herself as modern an 
air as she would desire. That she should have succeeded 
so little is happy for her and for us ; for we may apply 
to her what a poet of the Eenaissance said of Michael 
Angelo's " Night " — " 'Tis because she is dead she 
lives " (perche ha vita /). 



IMPORTANCE OF THE FORUM DOWN TO THE END OF THE 
EMPIRE — ITS CONDITION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 
PRESENT CENTURY — SIGNOR PIETRO ROSA'S EXCAVA- 
TIONS — M. DUTERT'S RESTORATION ESSAY. 

Everything, in fact, invites people who visit Eome 
to busy themselves chiefly with Antiquity ; for up to 
the present moment it is Antiquity which seems to 
have profited most by the events of 1870. The new 
government owed much to ancient memories ; since a 
favourite expedient for emphasizing the right of Eome 
to be free and dispose of herself, and of Italy to claim 
the city as a capital, had been to appeal to the history 
of the Eepublic and the Empire, and to talk unceasingly 
of the Senate, the Forum, and the Capitol, the new 
pretensions gaining considerably by the protection of 
these great names. The Italian Government had thus 
contracted a debt with the past, which it set about 
paying as soon as it was installed in Eome. As early 
as the 8th November 1870, a decree of the king's locum 



THE FOKUM. 9 

tenens instituted a superintendence of excavations, and 
charged therewith the skilful explorer of the Palatine, 
Signor Pietro Eosa. A week later the works in the 
Forum began. 

It is natural that attention should have first been 
turned in this direction. The Forum enjoyed the rare 
good fortune of remaining in all times the centre and 
heart of Eome. In nearly all our modern capitals the 
focus of activity and life changes with the centuries. 
In Paris it has passed successively from the left bank 
of the Seine to the right, and from one end of the town 
to the other. Eome proved more faithful to her 
ancient traditions. From the day when, according to 
Denys of Halicarnassus, Eomulus and Tatius, established 
the one on the Palatine and the Coelian, the other on the 
Capitoline and the Quirinal, decided to meet, for the 
discussion of common affairs, in the damp unwholesome 
plain stretching from the Capitoline to the Palatine,^ it 
never ceased to be the city's place of meeting and 
council. During the first years there was no other 
public place, and it served for every use. In the early 
morning all kinds of goods were sold there, throughout 
the day it was a court of justice, and, in the evening, 
people took their walks there. As time went on, 
public places multiplied, and there were special markets 
for cattle, for vegetables, and for fish {forum hoarium, 
olitorium, piscatorium) ; but the old Forum of Eomulus 
always retained its pre-eminence over all the others. 
Even the Empire, while changing so many things, did 
not deprive it of this privilege. Public places were 

^ Denys, II. 50. 



10 AECHJ^.OLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

built round about it, more vast, more regular, more 
sumptuous, but which were never otherwise looked 
upon than as the annexes and dependencies of what 
people persisted in calling the real Eoman Forum. It 
held out against the first disasters of the invasions, and 
survived the taking of Eome by the Visigoths and the 
Vandals. After each storm, the Eomans set about 
repairing it as best they could, and even the barbarians 
themselves, as in the case of Theodoric, sometimes took 
the trouble to restore the buildings they had ruined. 
The old place and its buildings still existed at the 
beginning of the seventh century, when it unhappily 
occurred to the Senate to consecrate to the abominable 
tyrant Phocas that column of which Gregorovius tells 
us, "the Nemesis of history has preserved it as a last 
monument of the baseness of the Eomans." From that 
moment ruins accumulate. Each war, each invasion, 
throws down some ancient monuments, and no trouble 
is taken to repair them. Temples, triumphal arches, 
that have been flanked with towers and crowned with 
battlements, like fortresses, attacked every day in the 
struggle of parties which divide Eome, and shattered by 
assaults, end by falling, and cover the soil with their 
ruins. Every century adds to this accumulation. 
When, in 1536, Charles the Fifth went through Eome 
on his way back from his expedition to Tunis, the Pope 
wished to make the avenger of Christianity pass beneath 
the Arches of Constantine, of Titus, and of Severus, and 
nothing was spared in order to provide him a finer road. 
"They demolished and pulled down more than two 
hundred houses and razed three or four churches, level 
with the ground," says Eabelais, who witnessed it. It is 



THE FOEUM. 11 

said that a few years later, Sixtus V. had the debris 
of the building materials, which he was using else- 
where, transported to this desert spot. All antiquity 
found itself covered over and lost beneath more than 
6 metres of rubbish. From that moment the Forum, 
now the Campo Vacchino, or cattle field, assumed 
the aspect which it kept until the beginning of 
this century. It was now only a dusty, open space, 
surrounded by mediocre churches, about which a few 
columns rose, half protected by the soil, a melancholy 
and forlorn spot, quite suited for reveries on the frailty 
of human grandeur and the vicissitudes of events. This 
is how Poussin represents it in his little picture in the 
Doria Gallery, and Claude Lorrain does the same in the 
landscape at the Louvre. 

One would think that these half-buried columns 
would have provoked the curiosity of the learned. 
How happens it, that since the Eenaissance not one of 
them has undertaken to excavate to their bases, in order 
to discover the soil they rest on ? This soil was that of 
the Forum ; it was known beyond a doubt that it 
would be found strewn with historical ruins ; and yet 
no thought was ever seriously entertained of under- 
taking works which might lead to the finest discoveries. 
It was only in the first years of this century that 
learned researches began ; but they were too often 
interrupted, and gave rise to more problems than 
they solved. The information they elicited was so 
incomplete, that fierce contests arose between the 
archseologists. Each gave a different name to the 
buildings that were brought to light, and each made for 
himself a special plan of the Forum. Neither its exact 



12 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLKS. 

limits nor even its precise position were known. Some 
supposed it must extend from the Arch of Severus to 
that of Titus — that is to say, from north to south ^ — 
while others placed it in quite the contrary direction, 
viz. from St Adrian to St Theodore ; all believed they 
found in the ancient writers texts clearly confirmatory 
of their opinions. In order that this confusion might 
be dissipated, fresh excavations were indispensable. 
They were undertaken with the idea of this time 
carrying out a work which should be definite. It no 
longer sufficed to try a few soundings to touch the 
ancient soil here and there ; it was resolved to free it 
entirely from the rubbish that covered it, and lay it 
bare in every part. This was the means adopted finally 
to ascertain the truth respecting the enigmas of the 
Forum. 

Signor Eosa first resumed the excavation of the 
Julian basilica, which had been partially cleared under 
the late Government. This work ended, the whole of 
one side of the Forum was known and acquired, namely, 
that extending to the west from the slope of the 
Capitoline to the first spurs of the Palatine. The 
workmen were urged forward towards the east, and no 
stop was made until the churches of Santa Martina 
and St Adrian were reached. The municipal Council 
of Eome would not permit a farther advance, being 

^ Although these designations are not quite exact, I call north side of 
the Forum that situated at the foot of the Capitoline, and south side, 
that which extends from St Lorenzo in Miranda (Temple of Antoninus) 
to St Maria Liberatrice. The east side is that bordering the churches 
of Sta Martina and St Adrian ; the west side, that stretching from the 
Via della Consolazione to the Palatine. 



THE FOKUM. 13 

unwilling to allow the destruction of the streets joining 
the different quarters of the modern town. However 
vexing this check, one had to be content with what it 
had been possible to do. In justice to Signer Eosa it 
must be owned that the works directed by him were 
vigorously prosecuted. It was necessary to remove 
more than 120,000 cubic metres of earth, but, under it, 
many ancient monuments were found which were only 
known by name, and at several points the topography 
of the Forum has been fixed. It is to be regretted that 
the Eoman administration did not deem it necessary to 
publishadetailedjournalof these interesting excavations; 
but this gap has happily been filled in part by the work 
which a young member of the French school at Eome, 
M. Ferdinand Dutert, has published on the Forum, and 
of which I am about to make liberal use. ^ M. Dutert 
assisted at Signor Eosa's labours and followed their 
progress day by day, walking behind the workmen, 
gathering and copying the least remains of ornaments 
and smallest fragments of sculpture as they met with 
them on their way. His work not only shows the 
present state of the Forum to those who have not seen 
it, and recalls it to those who have, but he has tried to 
teach us what it was in ancient times. He restores 
the ruined temples he raises again the fallen 
columns, he replaces the statues upon their bases, 
and puts once more before our eyes those splendours of 
which but a few fragments are left. I know there 
is always much conjecture in works of this kind ; but 



^ Le Forum romain par M. Ferd. Dutert, architece, ancien 
pensionnaire de France a Rome, Paris, chez A. Levy. 



14 AROHiEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

M, Dutert's restoration, usually based on exact in- 
dications, is in general very probable. Only a few 
deficiencies and errors have been noted in it, which, in 
the present state of our knowledge, it was very difficult 
to avoid. 

To ensure more activity, and, at the same time, more 
unity in these explorations, the Italian Government 
instituted a Direction-General of Antiquities and Fine 
Arts at Eome, and placed it under the charge of Signor 
Fiorelli, who had made a great name for himself by the 
able manner in which he had conducted the explorations 
at Pompeii. Signor Fiorelli from the very first made 
up his mind not to waste his energies and his resources 
on isolated excavations, but determined to concentrate 
his efforts on the Forum and its environs. The work 
had been well begun, and had produced the happiest 
results ; the best thing to do was to follow it up. The 
large square lying between the Basilica of Constantine 
and the Palace of the Csesars was yet to be explored. 
This vast space did not form part of the Forum proper, 
but it was the natural entrance to it, and was connected 
with it by the monuments with which it was crowded ; 
so that it could not be set on one side. These explora- 
tions have taken ten years to accomplish ; they are 
now complete. The ground from the Arch of Titus to 
the Capitol, a length of nearly 500 metres, has been 
laid bare. Let us profit by this to explore it in its 
entirety, to study the buildings on it, and to awaken the 
memories of the past as we come across them on our 
way.^ 

^ All the objects of our research may be studied on the Plan of the 
Forum, where they have been placed in their actual positions. 



-At'. 



i 




f1 



3 



YestaL 




ArcTiaeolotfical RamTjles 



PLAN OF THE FORUM 



Kactette ef C^*", 




THE FORUM. 15 



II. 



THE VIA SACRA BETWEEN THE AECH OF TITUS AND THE 
FOEUM — THE TEMPLE OF VESTA — THE DWELLING 
OF THE VESTALS (ATRIUM VESTjE) — THE VESTALS 
AND THE CHRISTIAN NUNS — VIEW OF THE 
PALATINE. 

Visitors, as a rule, enter the Forum by the Temple of 
Castor, opposite the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice. 
Thus they find themselves at once in the very centre of 
the place. But for the better understanding of the 
arrangement of the Forum, I prefer to begin at the 
beginning and follow the road that used to be taken by 
the multitude. We will commence at the farthest 
extremity. I am supposing that we have just left the 
Colosseum, and that we are walking along the Palatine. 
We see stretched before us a wide ancient road, over the 
old flagstones of which the traffic of the modern town 
still rolls. This road rises straight before us over a 
fairly steep slope and under the Arch of Titus. We 
are on the Via Sacra. 

The position of the Via Sacra has been the subject of 
many disputes among archseologists. We must not be 
surprised to find this question a difficult one to answer, 
for the ancients themselves do not seem to have been 
very clear upon this point. The example of Pompeii 
shows us that streets were not then inscribed with their 
names, and, as the knowledge of these appellations only 
became very gradually known, there was often much 
uncertainty concerning them. It was on this account 



16 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

that Varro and I'estus tell us that "the multitude were 
not very sure which road they ought to call the Via 
Sacra." They add, however, that everyone agreed to 
give that name to the road which led from the Temple 
of the Lares (near the Arch of Titus) to the Temple of 
Vesta. At the present day we know this road perfectly 
well ; we are able to traverse it in its whole length, 
thanks to the efforts of the excavators. 

On leaving the Arch of Titus, the road makes a sharp 
turn to the right, and follows the course of a large 
terrace, which is raised several steps above it. It was 
on this terrace that the Emperor Hadrian had built his 
Temple of Venus and his Temple of Eome, of which 
some very fine ruins still remain.^ After passing the 
Church of Santa Francesca Eomana, with its elegant 
clock tower, it turns to the left, close to the Basilica of 
Constantine, from which it is separated by some modern 
buildings; then it passes in front of the Temple of 
Eomulus (Church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano). This 
edifice, built by Maxentius in memory of his son who 
died young, was half buried in ruins. These have all 
been cleared away, and the door has been restored to 
its place ; of the four Cipolino marble columns which 
ornamented the sides of the facade, two have been set 
on their bases ; in fact, the little temple has been 
restored to its primitive elegance. The monuments on 
the other side of the road are neither so important nor 
so well preserved. On a level with the ground several 
bases of statues have been found. The right of placing 



^ M. Laloux has published a restoration of this buUding in the 
Melanges d' Archceologie ct d'histoire of the school at Rome. 



THE FORUM. 17 

one's statue by the side of a road so much frequented 
by the public was doubless a great honour and one 
much sought after ; it was a sure means of keeping 
oneself always before the populace, and ensured a 
greater chance of being remembered. By the side of 
these honorary pedestals the remains of an exhedron 
have been found ; that is to say, one of those semi- 
circular benches such as have been found at Pompeii, 
on vvhich loungers might sit and chat, or watch the 
passers-by.^ A little above and behind this first row, 
of which so little remains, the excavators have brought 
to light the whole of an ancient district composed of 
houses closely crowded together. This quarter must 
have become very dilapidated even in those early days ; 
under the basements of the most recently-built houses 
the foundations of older ones, running in a contrary 
direction, have been discovered. The incendiary fires, 
which were of such frequent occurrence at Eome, 
especially in the low-lying Forum, often totally changed 
its aspect. M. Jordan thinks that it must have been 
entirely reconstructed in the time of the Emperor 
Hadrian, when he built his Temples of Eome and Venus, 
and naturally wished them to be placed amid suitable 
surroundings, the better to set off his skill as an 
architect. 

Instead of following this road as far as the point 
where it joins the Forum, let us turn to the left for a 
moment. We will cross this block of houses whose 
foundations have been brought to light, and proceed 



^ See No. 1 ou plan. 
B 



18 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

towards the Palatine and the Church of Santa Maria 
Liberatrice. This place has played an important part 
in the history of ancient Rome. It was here that the 
first kings established the religious centre of Rome 
before Tarquin transferred it to the summit of the 
Capitol. The building of the Temple of Jupiter marks 
a new epoch in the religious life of the Romans. The 
period wliich had preceded it, and which is sometimes 
called the period of Numa, bore a very different stamp ; 
then religious rites were simpler, and the sacred build- 
ings less sumptuous ; no statues had as yet been raised 
to the deities, and cakes made of salted fiour were the 
only sacrifices. There still remained, in the days of the 
Empire, three monuments of this primitive age which 
time had respected, and which were situated close 
together. These were the Temple of Vesta, where 
burnt the eternal fire ; the Begia, or the dwelling of the 
king, w^ho, being both the spiritual head and the chief 
magistrate of the city, had to live in a central position ; 
and, lastly, the Atrium Vcstiv, where the vestals resided 
who assisted the king in his capacity of high priest, in 
the same way that, among private people, the daughters 
helped the father of the family in the service of the 
household gods. These are the three monuments which 
were beins: soucjht.^ 



1 For an account of the discoveries which have been made on this 
side, the reader is referred to the work of Signor Lanciani, entitled 
the Atrio di Vesta, published in the Notizk dcgli seaid of 1883, and to 
that of M. Jordan in the Bullctino dclV instituto di correspotidema 
archccologica, of May 1884. 



THE FORUM. 19 

The first discovery, tliat of the Temple of Vesta, was 
made several years ago. After the Basilica Julia had 
been cleared, the workmen, while digging at a short 
distance on the further side of the Temple of Castor, 
came upon a small round basement completely in ruins. 
Although so humble in appearance, there were archaeo- 
logists who did not hesitate to assert that these founda- 
tions must have supported the famous temple whose 
origin has been ascribed to Numa. At the time, this 
statement led to much discussion ; but no one has 
dared to dispute it since the dwelling of the vestals 
has been found quite close to it. Time is not altogether 
to blame for the fact that the only remains of this old 
temple should be a heap of earth and a few scattered 
stones. Time is less skilful than man in bringing about 
the ruin of ancient monuments ; and, among men, the 
most highly civilised are often those to be most feared. 
" The excavators of the sixteenth century," says Signer 
Lanciani, " have done more harm to the antiquities than 
all the barbarians of the Middle Ages." In 1549, some 
archaeologists, seeking for statues and other precious 
objects, discovered the Temple of Vesta, the ruins of 
which had been fairly well preserved under heaps of 
rubbish, but they lost no time in bringing about its 
entire destruction. They carried away, for edifices 
which they were building, marble facings, friezes, 
columns, and even blocks of volcanic stone which were 
used for foundations ; they made lime of the stones 
which they did not care to take away ; then, their 
devastations completed, they covered up all that was left 
with earth. Happily, a scientist of that time, Pavinio, 



20 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

had made a sketch of the ruins. This sketch, with the 
help of one or two bas-reliefs, and a few coins on which 
the temple is depicted, gives us a slight idea of what it 
must have been. It is ridiculous to say that the monu- 
ment of which the ruins were found in the sixteenth 
century was not the one built by Numa ; it might have 
been rebuilt more than once in ten or eleven centuries ; 
but Ovid says that, in rebuilding it, it was altered as 
little as possible, and great care was taken that its 
ancient appearance should be preserved.^ It was a 
round building, surmounted by a small cupola covered 
with sheets of metal. The savants invented very learned 
reasons to account for the round shape which they in- 
sisted in giving it. " It is round," they said, " like the 
world, and the world must be represented in the shape 
of a globe, in the centre of which burns the fire which 
nourishes everything." 

" Vesta cadem est quce terra y subest vigil ignis utrique." 

These subtle explanations of the ancient philosophers 
have jiow been abandoned, and we do not ascribe any 
such refined ideas to the rude peasants who, six or 
seven centuries before our era, built the first Temple 
of Vesta. It is supposed that they constructed it on 
the plan of the houses in which they themselves lived. 
Probably they knew of no other way of building. This 
is why the monuments which date back to the founda- 
tion of Eome all bear so much resemblance to one 
another ; for example, the little hut of Eomulus on the 

1 Ovid. Fast., VI. 267. 



THE FORUM. 21 

Palatine, which has been preserved with such respect ; 
the Temple of the Penates on the lieights of Velia ; that 
of Hercules Victor in the Forum hoarium-, ail reproduce 
the shape of the round cabins which were the first 
dwellings of the Italian people.^ These ancient build- 
ings were afterwards very often repaired, and ev^ry 
time they were repaired they were enriched. Ovid 
says that marble had taken the place of the inter- 
woven rushes which had formed the walls, and that 
the thatched roof had become a dome of brass ; "^ but, 
as I have just said, a sort of instinct of preservation, 
which is peculiar to this people, caused them to retain 
the original dimensions, the same external shape and 
general aspect, so that in the midst of the splendours of 
the Empire they seem to have preserved some souA^enir 
and some image of remote antiquity'. 

The dwelling of the vestals is situated, as might be 
expected, quite close to the temple in which they minis- 
tered. If, in 1876, the excavations had been prosecuted 
a little further, it would soon have been discovered ; 
but they were directed towards another spot, and it was 
only after having excavated the whole length of the 
Via Sacra, from the Basilica of Constantino to the Arch 
of Titus, that the restorers returned to the Temple of 
Vesta. A very few blows of the pick were enough to 
disclose the walls of the house of the vestals : thanks 
to the activity with which the works have been carried 
on, it has now been entirely laid bare. This was, with- 



1 See Helbig, Bull, dell' instit., 1878-9. 
" Ovid, Fast., VI. 261. 



22 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

out doubt, the greatest discovery that had been made 
W for many years ; and, if we accept the Basilica Julia, it 

was the most important monument as yet found on the 
Forum. 

The entrance is by a small side-door of unimposing 
appearance, but, after having crossed several steps, a 
rectangular court 68 metres long by 20 wide is reached. 
This court corresponds to the peristyle in ordinary 
houses, but is of an obsolete style. It was surrounded 
by vast porticoes, decorated with statues of the vestales 
maxima'' (the presidents of the College). These statues 
were placed on pedestals bearing pompous inscriptions. 
Signor Lanciani supposes that, at the time when the 
edifice was intact, it must have contained a hundred of 
these statues, but time has marvellously diminished 
the number. Now we have the fragments of but 
eighteen, all more or less mutilated. The pedestals 
are a little better preserved. Some had already been 
obtained from the excavations of the sixteenth century ; ^ 
the later explorations had produced about twenty more, 
of which some are in a perfect state of preservation. 
They bear inscriptions which teach us much. They 
show us what consideration the vestals enjoyed, and 
how much they were mixed up in public affairs. It 
was considered such an honour to belong to their 
college that Tiberius, to console the daughter of 
Fonteius Agrippa, who had not been elected, is believed 
to have given her a million sesterces.^ The honour 

^ The inscriptions which were known before these last excavations 
have been collected in the Corp. insc. lat., VI. 2127-2145. 
- Tacit, Ann., II. 86. 



THE FOEUM. 23 

was reflected on the whole family, and among the 
statues of which the remains have been found in the 
Atrium Vestce, several have been raised by relatives 
who were proud of having a vestal in the family. 
Sometimes they were set up by people who wished to 
evince their gratitude to one of the priestesses for a 
favour they had received, and the nature of the benefit 
shows us how far the vestals' power extended. We are 
surprised to see that* they contributed to the nomina- 
tion of the Emperor's librarian ; ^ but there are cases in 
which their interference astonishes us even more. How 
did they manage to procure for someone the rank of 
military tribuie ? and what good office could they 
have rendered to those centurions appointed by their 
comrades to arrange at Eome the affairs of their 
legion ? 2 

It is not astonishing that the gratitude of all these 
persons should have expressed itself in rather extrava- 
gant terms. We must doubtless discount a little the 
praises that are lavished on the vestals at the base of 
their statues ; but they have the merit at least of making 
us acquainted with the qualities that were expected of 
them. They are especially praised for the zeal and 
skill with which they perform their sacred duties. 
They are said to have watched devotedly day and night 
at the foot of the altars of the gods beside the eternal 
fire, and their prayers are supposed to have contributed 
much to the prosperity of the republic. Many of the 



1 Ccrrp. insc. lat., VI. 2131. 
^ Lanciani, No. 6. 



^/ 



24 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

virtues for which they are lauded, such as chastity, 
piety, strict observance of rules, devotion to duty, would 
have applied equally well to the Christian nuns, but a 
Christian would not have allowed the magniloquence 
and exaggeration of some of the compliments. She 
would have blushed to have it said of her that "she 
surpasses all women that have gone before her in 
devotion and goodness," or that " the goddess had 
reserved her for herself, and had chosen her out 
especially to be consecrated to her service." We can 
well believe that those who lavished such praises on 
the vestals made sure of not displeasing them, which 
proves that humility was not one of the virtues on 
which they prided themselves. We remark that one 
of them is said to have been renowned for her wonder- 
ful learning {doctrince, mirabilis). We know for a fact 
that the worship of Vesta was a very complicated affair, 
and a long initiation was necessary in order to be able to 
carry out the rites according to the prescribed forms. The 
thirty years for which a vestal bound herself were divided 
into three equal periods : during the first she learned 
her duties ; during the second she performed the service ; 
and during the third she taught the novices. Indeed, 
we see on one of the pedestals, which have been found 
in the Atrium Vcstcc, a young priestess thanking an 
older one for the good lessons which she had taught her. 
Another of these monuments presents a very remark- 
able peculiarity ; the name of the vestal to whom it 
has been raised has been so carefully obliterated that it 
is quite illegible. If so much trouble has been taken 
to efface- it, it must have been because the vestal was no 



THE FORUM. 25 

longer considered worthy of the honour that had been 
done her ; and one immediately thinks that she must 
have broken her vow of chastity, which fault was 
always punished with great severity. Another, and 
more plausible idea, has been put forward. The 
pedestal bears the date of the consulship of Jovian and 
Varro, that is to say, almost immediately after the death 
of the Emperor Julian, just when the struggle between 
the two religious was most violent. Should the chief 
vestal have abjured her vows, the affair would have 
made a stir, and it might have been considered indis- 
creet to have made the matter public. So we are led 
to believe that her fault was one of another nature, and, 
as the poet Prudentius speaks of a vestal who about 
this very time was converted to Christianity, ^ we may 
reasonably suppose that it might be this one. If the 
conjecture is true, the rage of the followers of Vesta, 
and the care they took to destroy the name of the 
culprit, may easily be understood. 

The large court of the Atrium Vestce has been cleared, 
and it now presents a most curious aspect. All the 
fragments of statues which the excavations have brought 
to light have been arranged along the walls in the very 
places where the statues of the chief vestals stood when 
the place was intact. Thanks to these ruins, it becomes 
easy to repeople this desert peristyle in imagination, 
and to restore to these vast porticoes their ancient 
inhabitants. The portraits of the vestals which remain 



^ Prnd., Peristeph. II. 527 : ^demquc, Laurenti, tuam Vesfalis 
intrat Claudia. 



26 AUCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

to US permit us, mutilated as they are, to get an idea of 
what they must have been like, as well as all the details 
of their severe and rich attire. We recognise the short 
hair, bound with the infula, from which hung short 
fillets, forming a sort of diadem round the head ; the 
cords which confined the tunic at the waist, and the 
round hulla which was worn on the breast in the same 
manner as that in which nuns wear the cross. 
M. Lanciani observes that this dress gave them quite a 
regal appearance, and we must confess that their dwell- 
ing was much more sumptuous than any of our modern 
convents. Let us not forget that the court which we 
are now visiting, and which must have been much 
frequented by them, was 68 metres long by 20 wide. 
When we think that the house was only occupied by 
six or seven vestals, these dimensions may well surprise 
us ; but M. Jordan accounts for them in a very 
ingenious way. According to him, certain indications 
seem to point out that a part of the peristyle was 
arranged like a grove, with trees, paths, and marble 
seats. This arrangement was not only to give pleasure 
to the vestals, and to make them more contented with 
their life, but it was really a necessity to them. " We 
must not forget," says M. Jordan, " that they belonged 
to the first families in Eome ; that the class from which 
they came were accustomed to pass the hot months in 
the country among the mountains or at the seaside ; 
they, on the contrary, having once entered the Atrium, 
found it difficult to get very far away from it again. 
Their duties kept them in the neighbourhood of the 
Temple of Vesta, and they had to say good-bye to Tibur, 



THE FORUM. 27 

Preeneste, Tarentum, and Baiae. In early times this 
confinement was a little more endurable to them ; 
between the Nova Via and the Palatine, there was a 
sacred wood called hicus Vestas, which is mentioned by 
Cicero.^ But it soon disappeared ; in this part of Eome, 
which became every day more and more thickly popu- 
lated, there was not an inch of ground that was not built 
upon ; air and light became ever more scarce, and the 
poor vestals who were forced to live among this accumu- 
lation of walls endeavoured to procure at home what 
the neighbourhood could no longer provide for them. 
Thus it was that a spacious dwelling came to be made, 
where it was possible for them to obtain fresh air ; and 
a little garden was laid out to delight their eyes with 
its fresh verdure. It was not much ; but in this respect 
the ancients were content with little ; and the masters 
of the world, established close to them upon the Pala- 
tine, were themselves not much better off. A grove is 
not worth much without a fountain ; and one has been 
found in the Atrium Vestm. It is a basin 4.40 metres 
by 4.10 metres, which even now is lined with marble. 
It has caused much surprise to find that, neither in the 
basin itself nor in the environs, has any trace of an 
aqueduct been found which might have brought water 
to the fountain when it was necessary to fill it ; but 
M. Jordan has accounted very reasonably for this 
peculiarity. Pestus says that the vestals did not use 
any water that did not come from an absolutely pure 
source, and they were forbidden to avail themselves of 

^ Cic. De divin., I. 45. 



28 ARCH.-KOLOGICAL RAMBLKR. 

tliat which the water-pipes brought from outside.^ We 
must suppose, then, that every morning the numerous 
sLuos attaoheil to the house brouglit water from some 
neighbouring spring and poured it into the basin. A 
conduit has been found which permitted it to flow into 
a drain which passed under the buihhng. 

As was always the case in Konian houses, all the 
sitting- and bed-rooms were disposed round the court. 
According to custom, the reception room or tahlinum 
was placed at the end, opposite the basin. This is a 
ver}' large room, which nnist have been richly decorated ; 
it is surprising that it was not placed in the centre. 
This peculiarity can only be explained by the repairs 
that have been made to the monument at various times 
when the arrangements must have been changed. The 
other rooms are in ruins, and it is difficult to say to 
what purpose they were applied. It seems, however, 
that the vestals must have used some of them for work- 
rooms in which, for example, they made the wola tialsa ; 
others were reserved for their private use. These must 
have been the apartments arranged along the porticoes 
on tlie Palatine side. Some, a little better preserved 
than others, still retain their wall-facings of precious 
marbles with stucco friezes which have not lost their 
brilliant colours. While I was curiously examining 
them, and admiring the richness of their decoration, I 
could not avoid thinking of the famous quarrel between 
Symmachus and St Ambrose over the altar of Victory. 
Symmachus bitterly attacked tlie laws which the last 

1 Festus, pp. 158-160. 



THE FORUM. 29 

Emperors had made against tlie pagan priests. He 
pitied the vestals more than any ; he spoke with emotion 
of " those noble maidens who have consecrated their 
virginity to the welfare of the State," whose property 
had been taken from them, and of the treatment they 
had r(;ceived from the public Treasury. St Ambrose, 
in reply, insinuated tliat tliese " noble maidens " were 
not altogether worthy of the admiration which Sym- 
machus ex]>ressed for them. He recalled with yjleasure 
their privileges, tlieir fortune, the consideration with 
which they had been surrounded, the large allowance 
which the State had made them ; and hinted that tliere 
were only seven of them to share all these advantages. 
" All that we can call to mind about the Temple of 
Vesta is the honour of the fillets with which the vestals 
cover their heads, the splendour of tlieir purple vest- 
ments, the litter in which they are carried, the train of 
servants which follow them, the immunities granted 
them, their liberal allowance of money ; and, lastly, the 
right they have of not binding themselves for n)ore 
than a certain number of years ! " Witli these few 
great ladies, blessed with all the gifts of fortune and 
enjoying all the pleasures of life, he compares the 
Christian n,uns, so simph.*, so humble, and, at the same 
time, so numerous, whom he calls by the beautiful 
phrase 'plehem 'pudoria. " They have no rich fillets, l;ut 
wear an ugly veil over their faces. Instead of trying 
to enhance their beauty by all the tricks of dress, they 
afi'ect a most sim]}le attire. What they de.sire, what 
they seek, are not tlie pleasures of life ; it is fasting and 
poverty." He was certain that this contrast between 



30 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the Christian monasteries of this time and the aristo- 
cratic convent of these vestals would be a striking one. 
It seems to me that a visit to their sumptuous house as 
we know it since the last excavations have been made, 
and the sight of the apartments of which such beautiful 
fragments remain, must form a commentary to the 
words of St Ambrose. 

Let us leave this rich and vast peristyle where we 
have lingered so long. A staircase of twenty-six steps 
brings us on a level with the road, of which we can 
follow the course from the Church of St Maria Liberatrice 
to the Arch of Titus, and which passes close by the side 
of the Atrium VesUe. It is thought to be the Nova 
Via, mentioned more than once in Eoman history, and 
which bordered the Palatine Gate and the Temple of 
Jupiter Stator. It must be confessed that the seclusion 
of the vestals could not have been very strict on this 
side, and access might have been very easily gained by 
means of the low windows. A few more steps lead us 
to other rooms, of which the mosaic pavements are the 
only remains. Some of them must have been bath- 
rooms; brick pipes are still to be seen in the walls, 
which must have served to carry water into the marble 
baths. In the centre of these apartments, which appear 
to have been clumsily repaired in the last days of tlie 
Empire, are the fragments of another staircase, which 
proves that the rooms of the vestals could not have 
been lower than the second storey. 

It is from here that we get the best view of the 
Palatine, as it appears since the last excavations. Those 
who have not visited it for two or three years will have 



THE FORUM. 31 

some difficulty in recognising it. Until lately the 
Palatine was separated from the Forum by a dusty 
road leading to the entrance to the Farnese Gardens. 
Then, when it had passed under the gate built by 
Vignolius, it ascended, terrace by terrace, to the Palace 
of the Caesars. This road is now a thing of the past. 
The mass of rubbish and earth that covered up the 
ancient houses has been removed, and the ruins that 
have been so long hidden have been brought to light. 
From the top to the bottom of the hill nothing is now 
seen but stone or brick walls of unequal height, and the 
framework of houses. This spectacle, I fear, will not 
be to the taste of everyone ; more than one artist will 
perhaps find fault with the archaeologists, and reproach 
them bitterly for having replaced the Farnese Gardens, 
from which such beautiful views were obtained over the 
Gampo Vacchino, by something which resembled the 
streets of Paris when it was half destroyed. Certainly, 
archseology cares very little as a rule for beauty — it is 
content with truth ; but truth has its charm too. 
Perhaps, on looking at the Palatine as the new excava- 
tions have left it, the eye is at first bewildered by the 
accumulation of ruins ; but imagination soon sets to 
work. It raises vanished houses on the shapeless 
ruins, it joins broken walls, it erects houses that have 
been destroyed, and soon shows us this quarter as it 
must have been towards the end of the Empire. 

"We have more than one lesson to learn from the 
curious spectacle which it presents. We see once more 
how little the ancients cared for the wide streets and 
open spaces which our modern towns could not do 



32 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

without. We are here at the foot of the Imperial 
palace, a short distance from the Forum — that is to 
say, in the heart of the great city ; and yet "we have 
before our eyes nothing but a mass of houses creeping 
up the hill, jostling each other to suffocation, and leav- 
ing no empty space between them. The two parallel 
roads which separate them, and which run along the 
side of ihe Palatine — the Nova Via, of which I have 
just spoken, and the Glivus Victoria;, a little higher up — 
were not enough to give the light and air of which this 
quarter was in such need. It was impossible to keep 
off the invasion of the houses which bordered them. 
These dwellings encroached little by little upon the foot- 
path ; then, after having almost met down below, their 
top stories were united by small arches thrown across 
the street from one roof to another, and on these arches 
were built aerial rooms ; so that in time the Nova Via 
and Clivus Viciorice became dark haunts for cut-throats. 
It struck me as I walked along it that it was doubtless 
in such a street that, in Sylla's time, Sextus Eoscius was 
killed by the assassins as he was returning from dinner. 
{Oceiditvr ad balneas palatinae rediens a cena}) 

The other observation, which the sight of this new 
quarter suggested to me, regards the palace of the 
Cfesars. Formerly, when the only entrance was through 
the Gate of Vignolius, when these grand ruins were 
separated from the Forum by fields and walls, this 
building gave one the idea of an isolated and closely 
secluded dwelling. It is the general idea that one 

^ Cic, Pro. Bosc. Amer., VII. 



THE FORUM. 33 

always has of a king's palace. But this is not so ; the 
new excavations show ns that we have made a mistake. 
The house of Caligula, who was perhaps the most 
superstitious of the Ctesars, almost touched the other 
houses on the hill. Thence a staircase, still almost 
intact, takes one down into the centre of the Clivtcs 
Vidorice ; then from the Clivus it continues as far as 
the Nova Via, which we know met the Forum ; in this 
way it was possible to ascend directly and in a very 
few minutes from the Via Sacra to the house of the 
prince. There is nothing here which resembles the 
dwellings of Eastern despots as Herodotus paints them 
for us, defended by their many enclosures and their 
entrenched camps. Nothing separates the houses of 
Augustus and Tiberius from the others ; they live in the 
midst of the people, and are not separated from the rest 
of the Eomans by moats and walls. This is done so as 
to make the people believe that they were citizens as 
well as themselves, to persuade people who judge by 
appearances — and the great majority do so — that 
the Cajsars must not be considered as kings, and that, 
under their rule, Eome was always a free city. 

So we possess two out of the three monuments which 
recall the most ancient religion of Eome — the temple 
where the sacred fire burnt, and the dwelling of the 
vestals. The third one alone remains to be discovered, 
the Begia, that is to say, the residence of the high 
priest, where Julius Csesar dwelt. Must we believe, 
with Sign or Lanciani, that the Eegia disappeared long 
before the ruin of the Empire ? or must we think with 

C 



34 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

M. Jordan that it will be found under the Church of St 
Maria Liberatrice ? The future alone can say. 

We have now arrived at the entrance to the Forum, 
whither the road debouching near the Temple of 
Antoninus, by whatever name it be called, leads us. 
Before entering and trying to describe it, I think it as 
well to detain the reader yet a moment on the threshold. 
There are a few important reflections to be made at the 
outset, if we would avoid serious disappointment. 
Let us not forget that the Forum we are about to visit 
is that of the Empire. Most of the monuments of the 
epoch of the kings or of the glorious times of the Eepub- 
lic, which we are tempted to seek before all the others, 
are no longer there. It has been so often reconstructed 
and altered, it has so many times changed its appearance 
that those ancient memories have left very little trace 
on it. They only exist for us in the texts of the old 
writers who tell us of them. But those texts, although 
obscure and rare, have been interpreted with so much 
sagacity by a learned criticism, that we are now able, 
without great trouble and with sufficient probability, 
to replace those poor monuments of Eome's earliest 
times upon the ground encumbered with buildings of 
another age.^ 

The aspect and natural configuration of the place 



1 For the better understanding of what follows, I have reproduced, with 
a few slight modifications, the map given by M. Detlessen at the end of 
his work on the Comitium, in les Annales de V Institut de correspondence 
arcMologique (1860). Although only the primitive Forum is here in 
question, it was not possible to make the sites of the more ancient 
monuments intelligible without marking those of the following epoch, 



THE FORUM 

in tKe first years of the Republic 




TEMPLVM 
VESTAE ? 
S to. If ancx^ J^tbertxtr ice- 



After Detlefsen 



TPIE FORUM. 35 

greatly help us in this. We have seen that, according 
to Deuys of Halicarnassus, Eomulus and Tatius used 
to meet in a certain part of the Forum in order to 
confer, and that at this spot, since called the Comitium 
(gachering), the citizens thenceforth held their assem- 
blies. But where was the site of the Comitium to be 
looked for ? For a long time it was customary to locate 
it a little everywhere— even in the lowest parts of the 
plain. Good sense, however, tells us that it must have 
been in a high place, safe from floods. The Forum in 
its primitive state, was a marsh.i Tarquin, by building 
the great drain discovered under the portico of the 
Basilica Julia, caused the stagnant waters of the Tiber 
to How off, and first rendered the bottom of the place 
practicable. Before his time, there could have been no 
question of establishing a place for public meetings 
there. We must therefore put the Comitium a little 
higher, on the slope of a hill, in a dry spot. The texts 
of the old authors prove that it was to the north-west 
of the Forum, towards the part where we now find the 
Arch of Severus and the churches of Santa Martina and 
St Adrian. It formed a square, raised a few steps 
surrounded by a balustrade, and sufficiently extensive 
tor the cunal Comitia to be held there. Above the 
Goimttum was built the Curia, where the Senate met. 

but. in order to avoid all confusion, they have been given in thinner 
lines and smaller letters. Of course, in an attempt to go back to such 
remote tnnes. of which scarcely anything remains, minlte etc i ude 
cannot be expected. Detlessen's map only tries to give us an approxT 
nmt« :dea of the Forum in the regal and republican epoch '' 

Ovxd, Fast., VI. 401: Hoc, nli nunc fora-sunt, J^ tenuere paludes 



36 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

It is unanimously believed that it was situated at 
about the place covered by the church of St Adrian. 
A little higher than the Curia a somewhat extensive 
platform was occupied by different public monuments, 
notably by the Grtecostasis, where foreign ambassadors 
used to wait until the Senate should deign to receive 
them, and by the Temple of Concord, whose remains 
still exist, and serve to fix the position of all the 
rest.i 

So we can picture to ourselves the ancient Roman 
Forum, although scarcely anything now remains of it. 
Let us imagine, at the foot of the Capitol and of the 
citadel, a series of terraces rising one above the other. 
Lowest of all, we have a sort of swampy plain, the real 
Forum, where the plebeians meet ; a little higher is the 
Comitium, a square esplanade serving as a place of 
assembly for the nobles — that is to say, of the real 
citizens who govern Rome — while higher yet we find the 
Curia, where the senate holds its sittings, and of which 
the Coiiiitium is, so to speak, the vestibule :- so that the 
very configuration of the place is an exact image of the 
political constitution of the country, and thejvarious 
stages in which it is distributed represent different 
degrees of the social hierarchy, each class ascending 
higher as, in fact, it raises in power the nobles above 
the plebeians, and the Senate above all. 

This State, so severely kept, where all the classes of 



^ Pliny, XXXIII. i. 6: ^dem Concordioe . . . in Qrcecostasi, quce 
tune supra comitium, erat. 
' Titus Livius, XLV. 24 : Comitium vestibulum curix. 



THE FOEUM, 37 

society are so well subordinated one with the other, is 
not, however, a despotic State. The Aristocracy, 
which holds the power and desires to keep it, does not 
resemble that of Venice, which deliberated in the dark 
and forbade liberty of speech. The gravest questions 
are handled in the Comitmm, in the light of day, and 
everything is carried on by word of mouth. In the 
place where public meetings are held, there is a tribune 
for the orators, and it is regarded as a sacred spot 
(templmn). It is a small terrace of some little height 
and breadth, and without any balustrade, where he 
who speaks is completely seen from all sides, which 
obliges him to drape himself becomingly and assume 
noble attitudes. The wall supporting it bears a 
singular ornament: the^iron prows (rostra) of the ships 
found by the Romans in the port of Antium, after the 
taking of the town, have been fixed there. They burnt 
the ships, not knowing what to do with them, and 
brought away the rosira as a trophy to decorate their 
Forum. The site of the tribune can be fixed with 
sufficient exactness. We are told it was close to the 
Curia : ^ the Senate, aware of the importance of speech, 
desired closely to supervise it. " It has its eye on the 
tribune," says Cicero, "and holds it in hand, to restrain 
it from rashness and keep it in bounds." 2 A 
passage in Pliny informs us that it must have been 
situated opposite the Grcccostasis, that is to say, on the 

1 Asconius, Cic, Fro Mil. 5 : Himit enim tunc rostra nan eo loco quo 
nunc sunt, sed ad comifium, propejuncta curia:. 

aCic, Pro Flacco, 24: speculatur aique obsidei rostra vindex 
temeritatis et moderatrix officii curia. 



38 ATICH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

other side of the church of St Adrian.^ llnally, we 
know that it was at the extreme limits of the Comitium. 
Thence the orator can be heard by everyone, and his 
voice reaches the different degrees of the Forum.- 
Only during the first centuries he is obliged to turn 
towards the Comitium when he speaks. He must 
preferably address the noble assembly which really 
governs the town. Later on, Licinius Grassus, or, 
according to other authors, the Gracchi, dared to 
violate this ancient usage, and first turned towards 
the Plebs. Sovereignty had changed place. 

The Forum being the most frequented place in the 
town, commerce naturally flowed thither. It is said 
to have been surrounded by shops as early as the 
period of the kings. The western side, opposite to 
the Comitium, offered more free space, and was thus 
the first to be built upon. There arose what were called 
the "old shops" {taherncc veteres). When ground 
failed on this side, they crossed over to the other, and 
on the space left vacant by the Comitium and the 
Curia erected the " new shops " {taherncc nova;). Very 
different trades must have been carried on in them, 
at least in the earliest times. > The school, to which 
Virginia was going when she was seized by the people 
of the triumvir Appius, was situated in the Forum. 
We are told that, when her father was forced to kill 

^ Pliny, Nat. Hist., VII. 60. He says that in order to determine 
the hour of noon, they looked at the sun between the Grcccostasis and 
the rostra. The Grcecostasis being close to the Temple of Concord, to 
the right of the Curia, the rostra must have been placed to the left. 

- Dion Cassius, XLIII. 



THE FORUM. 39 

her iu order to save her honour, he went to the new- 
shop and took a knife from a butcher's stall. Later 
on, the tradespeople, driven from the Forum by the 
fine buildings which were erected there, took refuge 
iu the vicinity. A great number of them settled in 
the quarter of the Fia Sacra. Beside the vendors 
of fruits and other eatables,^ there must have been 
more elegant shops — perfumers, goldsmiths, jewellers. 
Here about the time of Julius Ccesar — that is to say, 
before Christianity — lived that "jeweller of the Sacred 
Way," to whom, in his epitaph, is awarded the 
beautiful eulogy that he was compassionate and "loved 
the poor." ^ 

The old Forum, which had remained the same 
throughout five centuries, underwent a great change 
in 570, when Cato built the first basilica there. This 
preserver of ancient customs was often a revolutionist, 
who did not scruple to introduce new ones into the 
city ; and the enemy of the Greeks hesitated not to 
imitate them when he found it useful to do so. He 
desired, above all things, to please the populace, whose 
favourite candidate he was. The people, for its pleasiire 
or its business, frequented the Forum a great deal ; 
but the Forum was not always a very pleasant place. 
It is often extremely hot in Eome, and it not unfre- 
quently rains there. On the rainy and the hot days the 
busy and the idle knew not where to shelter themselves 



^ The fruit vendors of the Via Sacra were renowned. See Varro, Ue 
re rust., and Ovid, Ars. am., II. 265, 
- Corp. insc. lat., I. 1027. 



40 ARCH.^ilOLOGICAL l{A!^tl?LES. 

in this uncovoiod spot. It was in order to give them a 
place of refuge that Gate built his basilica. Monuments 
of the kind served, as is known, for many uses. Not 
only was it customary to buy and sell and render 
justice there; but people often assembled in the basili- 
cas without having anything to do ; merely to chat, 
and play, and laugh together. It was natural that this 
people, fond as they were of amusements, should be most 
grateful to those who provided them with such places 
of meeting and rendezvous.^ Unfortunately, this mode 
of pleasing them was not within the reach of all fortunes. 
A basilica could only be constructed after the purchase 
of the shops and houses of private persons, and 
these, situated in the finest quarter of the town, had 
assumed a great value. Cicero, who busied himself a 
great deal with the basilica which C;esar intended 
to build, relates that the ground cost oO,000,000 
sesterces (12,000,000 francs). "The owners," he tells 
Atticus, " were unmanageable." - But the favour of the 
people brought so nnich with it, that it could never be 
purchased at too high a price. And this is why the 
Forum was, little by little, embellished with the superb 
monuments w^hose remains have been restored to 
us by recent excavations. 



^Cicero, Ad. Alt., IV. 16: Xihil gratius iUo monnmcnto nihil 
glariosius. 

■■^Cicero, Ad. Ait., IV. 16: Cum privatis'non 2>otcrat transigi miuoro 
pecxuua. (On tlio basilicas of Rome, seo Jordiiu, Top., II. 216.) 



















V 











THE FORUM. 41 



III. 

TJIE FORUM OF THE EMPIRE — HOW WE HAVE BEEN 
ENABLED TO RECOGNISE AND DESIGNATE ITS CHIEF 
MONUMENTS — STATIUS AND THE STATUE OF DOMI- 
TIAN — THE TEMPLE OF C^.SAR — THE BASILICA JULIA — 
TEMPLES OF SATURN AND CASTOR — THOSE OF 
VESPASIAN AND CONCORD — EAST SIDE OF THE 
FORUM — CENTRE OF THE FORUM — THE CLIVUS C'API- 
TOLINUS. 

We may now study it as it is, and, raising the ruins 
that cover it, picture to ourselves what it must have 
been at the end of the Empire. Let us go in by the 
newly-discovered road passing along the Temple of 
Eomulus and that of Antoninus. At the entrance, 
between the latter monument and the church of Santa 
Maria Liberatrice, situated at the foot of the Palatine, 
we meet with the ruins of a building of great extent. 
Only the substructions remain, but they suffice to show 
us that it must have been a temple. The faqade, which 
was turned towards the Capitol, presents a curious 
construction. The steps are not continuous, as is usually 
the case, the middle being occupied by a wall of 
peperino, rising between two narrow stairways.' This 



' This arrangement is met with again at Pompeii. The flight 
of steps leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the end of the Forum, 
exactly resembles that of the temple at Rome, of which we are 
speaking. 



42 AECHyEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

wall supported a sort of platform, from which a fairly 
complete view of the Forum is obtained. Let us place 
ourselves on this convenient and central spot, and 
thence survey the spectacle which unfolds itself before 
our eyes.^ 

It would not surprise me were the first glance not 
to fulfil our expectation. In order to join the two 
quarters of the modern town, it has been necessary 
to leave an ugly road in the midst of the excava- 
tions, called the Bridge of Consolation. This divides the 
Forum into two parts, and allows no portion of it to be 
excavated in its entirety. It is impossible to imagine 
it as it must have been, without first mentally re- 
moving this inconvenient obstacle. This efii^brt accom- 
plished, another remains to be made. We have only 
ruins before us, often shapeless. These heaped-up frag- 
ments are somewhat unpleasing to the eye, and in 
order that they may move the imagination, we must be 
told to what building they belonged, and know their 
names and histories. 

After many groupings and uncertainties, this has at 
length been done, and the learned are now nearly 
agreed as regards the designation of the various monu- 
ments of the Forum. I shall content myself with giv- 
ing the most important texts on which these designations 
are based. 

In the reign of Domitian it occurred to the Senate, 



^ See No. 1, on the plan of the Forum according to Sf. Dutert. 
It is the spot where I suppose the observer phiced to survey the 
Forum. 



TFFK KORUM. 43 

who knew llioir lord to ])o;s,s(;.s8 a duiiiLy uppctite for 
lionour«, to raise a colossal statue to him, as had been 
done to Nero. It was placed in the midst of the 
Forum, and Statius, the conrtier-poet, sang its erection in 
verses, in which, setting modesty and truth at defiance, 
he congratulates Domitian, above all things, on his 
gcnthiuess, puts him far above Cajsar, and supposes that 
the old heroes of tin; Republic come to pay him com- 
pliments. Happily, in Uif; niid.st of these repulsive 
}>latitudes,he manages to render us a signal servic(;. In 
descril)ing tin; statue, Ik; (;numerat(!S the buildings 
round about it, telling us their nam(;s and tli(! places 
they occu[)y ; and he does this with so much ]jref;ision, 
that he enables us to know where we are in the midst 
of all these ruins. But in order to profit by the indica- 
tions he gives us, we must first know which way 
the statue faced. Statins informs us with much 
exactness. " Thy head," he tells the emperor, " exceeds 
tlie highest temples. Thou lookest to see if thy palace 
rises more glorious after the fire that consumed it, and 
whether the sacred fire has not ceased to burn in the 
solitary asylum where it must be kept alive." This 
moans, in other terms, that it was turned towards the 
Temple of Vesta and the I'alatine. There, now, are the 
monuments in whose midst it wns ])lac(;d. We shall 
see that it was diflicult to be more j^recise and clear. 
" Behind thee rises the Temple of V(;spasian thy father, 
and that of Concord ; on one side of thee thou hast the 
basilica of Julius, on the other that of Tl^vmilius. 
Opposite, thou gazest on the monument of him who 
first opened the heavenly road to our princes," — that is 



44 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

to say, the temple raised to Julius Caesar after his 
apotheosis.^ 

So this building, situated opposite to the statue of 
Domitian, and which is just the one on which we have 
placed ourselves to look at the Forum, was the Temple 
of Cffisar. This monument has a curious history. 
Cresar had built a new tribune of harangues, doubtless 
pretending as a reason that the old one was badly 
placed, and that it was better to put it at one of the ends 
of the Forum than in the middle, in order that every- 
body miglit face the orator. In reality he wished to 
unroot eloquence from its wonted seat, desiring that it 
should lose its ancient habits and accustom itself to the 
order of things he was about to establish. This new 
tribune {rostra Jtdia) was the theatre of the terrible 
drama enacted after the death of the great dictator. 
Hither it was that the body was brought on the day of 
the funeral, when Antony, at the right moment uncover- 
ing the body and showing its bleeding wounds, carried the 
crowd away by his eloquence ; and it is here that the 
populace, maddened by grief and anger, burnt it with 
benches and seats taken from the neighbouring houses. 
On this same spot, a few days later, an altar and a column 
twenty feet high were raised to him, whither they came 

^ Statins, Silvcs, I. 22. It is believed that the stone supports on 
which the Colossus of Domitian rested have been found in the middle 
of the Forum, near the column of Phoeas (see No. 2 on M. Dutert's 
plan). If this be true, we must suppose that when, on the emperor's 
death, the statue was overthrown, the pedestal was preserved, a thing 
hardly probable. M. Jordan is rather tempted to think that these 
layers of stone, which are still visible, belonged to the famous statue of 
Con stan tine. 



THE FOEUM. 45 

to offer him sacrifices. When his party had triumphed, 
and he had been officially made a god, the altar became a 
temple, which was solemnly consecrated by Augustus. 
Only its foundations remain to us, and this platform on 
which we stand is perhaps all that is left of the tribune 
of Ctesar, from which Cicero declaimed his Philippics} 

To our left, along the road rising towards the Capitol, 
our attention is drawn to the ruins of a vast edifice, 
the finest yet discovered in the Forum. It still bears 
the name of Caesar, and is the Julian basilica {basilica 
Julia). It was begun by the dictator and finished by 
his nephew; but scarcely was it completed when it 
was destroyed by a fire, and had to be recommenced. 
Augustus took advantage of this to remake it larger 
and more beautiful. There now remains of it its 
marble pavement, raised several steps above the sur- 
rounding streets, and extending over a surface of 4,500 
metres. As it has kept the trace of the columns and 
pillars that served to support the arched roof, we are 
able to restore its plan. The basilica was composed 
of a central hall, used as a court of justice. It was 
large enough to contain four tribunals, which dispensed 
justice together or separately.^ It is here that the 

^We read in a passage of the Philippics, VI. 5 : Adspicitc a sinistra 
illmn equestrem statuam. This statue, Cicero saj's a little further on, 
was before the Temple of Castor. Well, when one was on the tribune 
of Cresar, the Temple of Castor was certainly to one's left, which seems 
to prove that this oration was delivered there. 

^ Quintilian (XII. 5, 6) relates that when these four tribunals acted 
separately, and the basilica was full of noise, Trachalus, who spoke 
before one of them, managed to make himself heard, and was 
applauded from the others. 



46 ARCH-^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

most important civil causes of the time were pleaded, 
aud where Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, and other 
famous advocates of that age, obtained their most 
brilliant successes. This great hall was surrounded 
by a double row of porticoes. Porticoes were then 
places much frequented by both sexes in order to walk 
and amuse themselves. Ovid strongly recommends a 
young man desirous " to fight his first battles " to 
repair thither in the heat of the day : the crowd is 
so numerous and so mixed, that he will easily find 
what he seeks. ^ Not only young people of fashion and 
light women in search of adventures pi'omenaded under 
the porticoes of the basilicas : many men of the people 
also came thither, together with the idle and the unem- 
ployed, of whom there were many in that great city 
where the prince and the rich undertook to feed and 
amuse the poor. They have left their traces on the 
fi.oor of the basilica. Its marble flagstones are scratched 
over with a multitude of circles and squares, usually 
crossed by straight lines dividing them into separate 
compartments. These were a sort of draughtboard used 
by the Eomans for their games. The rage for gaming 
among the unoccupied portion of the people was in- 
credible. It was not always obscure citizens who took 
part in it. Cicero, in his Philipi^ics, speaks of a man of 
some importance who did not blush to indulge in it in 
the open Forum." An attempt had been made, towards 



' Ovid, Ars. am., I. 65 et seq. 

^ Cicero, PhU., II. 23 : Hominem nequissimum, qui non dubritaret vel 
in faro cUea ludere. 



THE FOKUM. 47 

the end of the Republic, to repress this mania by a law, 
but this law was not observed. They played through- 
out the Empire, and the quite fresh marks which 
furrow the soil of the Julian basilica show that they 
were siill playing in Eome's last moments.^ The 
basilica must have been of a considerable height. 
Above the first row of porticoes there was a second, 
accessible by means of a staircase, traces of which are 
still visible. From this gallery the whole place was 
commanded, and it was from here that Caligula threw 
money to the crowd, in order to have the pleasure of 
seeing people smother each other in endeavouring to 
pick it up.^ Hence, too, one could see all that was 
passing in the basilica, and follow the pleadings of the 
advocates, Pliny relates that in a serious case, where 
he was pleading for a daughter disinherited by her 
father, who at eighty years of age had fallen in love 
with a designing woman, the crowd was so great that 
not only did it fill the hall, but the upper galleries 
were thronged with men and women who had come 
to hear him.^ 

Having become acquainted with the basilica Julia, the 
names of the surrounding monuments are easily found 
out. The Emperor Augustus says, in the inscription 



^ Some of these figures used by tlie players, and which are found in 
such great numbers on the pavement of ancient monuments, bear 
curious inscriptions. Here is one that has been read in the basilica 
Julia: Vincis, gaudes ; perdes, plangis. See Padre Bruzza's interesting 
article, entitled Tavole lusorie del castro pretorio {Bull. arch, munic. 
1877). 

2 Suet., Calig., 37. ^ Pliny, EpisL, VI. 33, 



48 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

of Ancyrae : " I have finished the basilica begun by 
my father, which is situated between the Temple 
of Castor and that of Saturn." The surroundings of 
the monument, therefore, are here perfectly indicated. 
The Temple of Saturn, where the treasure of the State 
was kept, rises at the foot of the slope of the Capitol. 
Eight columns now remain of it, of somewhat coarse 
execution. They were repaired at the end of the 
Empire, between two invasions, and this work was 
done with such haste and carelessness that pieces 
of the shafts have in some cases been replaced up- 
side down. The other temple, near the Palatine, is 
that of Castor, or of the Dioscures, called by Cicero 
"most illustrious of monuments, the witness of all 
the political life of the Eomans."^ Three columns 
of it remain, which have ever been the study and 
admiration of artists. They are yet more striking 
now that the excavations allow of their being viewed 
from a lower level. Seen from the true ground of 
the Forum, they appear still more elegant and bold. 
To complete our knowledge of this side of the Forum, 
we should now only have to find the Temple of Vesta, 
with its dependent buildings — that is to say, tlie 
dwelling, or, if you will, the convent, of the Vestals 
and the house of the grand Pontifi", called the Rcgia. 
The foundations of some circular buildings have 
indeed been brought to light, towards the Palatine, 
but they did not seem to be sufficiently important 
for us to recognise in them the remains of the famous 

^ Cic, Verr., V. 72, 



THE FORUM. 49 

sanctuary where the sacred fire was kept.^ In any 
case, it could not be far distant, since we know from 
positive texts that it was near the Temple of Castor,'-^ 
and it is still hoped that its foundations will be 
discovered when it is permitted to pull down the 
mediocre church of Santa Maria Liberatrice. 

Opposite to us, at the end of the Forum, rises a 
large, modern, and very ugly wall, forming part of 
the municipal palace, and resting on ancient founda- 
tions. These foundations go back to the Eepublican 
period, and an inscription found there tells us they 
were the work of Lutatius Catullus, who finished the 
Capitol after the death of Sylla. They are the remains 
of an important monument where the state archives 
were kept, and called JErarium populi romani (treasure 
of the Eoman people) or Tdbularium. It was com- 
posed of a high basement of peperino, surmounted, 
according to M. Dutert, by two stages of porticoes. 
The whole building, which must have been lower 
than the modern wall and allowed the Capitol to be 
seen, closed the Eorum majestically to the north. 
Below, there are two temples, whose names, it will 
be remembered, Statius has told us. One is the Temple 
of Vespasian, built by his son, Domitian, quite close 
to that of Saturn ; three columns of it remain to us. 
The other is the Temple of Concord, entirely destroyed. 



^ It is thought that one of these monuments was the tribunal of the 
Praetor, called Puteal Lihonis, where justice was administered. 

- Martial, I. 70 : Vicinum Castora cance Transihis Vcstac, virgin' 
eamquc domuni. 



50 AKCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

It was a maguiiicent monument, which had been 
turned into a kind of museum. Masterpieces of the 
Greek artists, graven stones, and natural curiosities 
were to be found there. The custom of consecrating 
precious objects of gokl and silver to Concord, in order 
tc propitiate her, continued under the Empire. Some 
of these offerings were made in favour of the emperors 
by devoted subjects. An inscription has been found 
among the ruins of the temple, praying the goddess 
to prolong the days of Tiberius, in which he is called 
the best and most just of princes.^ 

So we are now acquainted with three sides of the 
Forum : that towards the east alone has not been 
cleared. It is covered by a quarter of New Eome, 
and in order to bring it to light again, it would be 
necessary to destroy all the houses from *S. Lorenzo in 
miranda (the Temple of Antoninus) to Santa Martina. 
It will doubtless soon be done, for the Municipal 
Council of Eome understands that it cannot leave 
its work imperfect. Happily, we know, approximately, 
what there is there. The texts of the ancient authors 
inform us of this with sufficient clearness, and a very 
curious discovery has nearly put it before our eyes. In 
the course of the excavations, made near the Column 
of Phocas, there were found, among works of the 
Middle Ages, two bas-reliefs, probably dating from 
the first century. Many disputes have arisen as to 
the subject they represent, but all admit the scene 
to be laid in the Forum, and that the artist meant 



^ Jordan, Sylloge insc. Fori, No. 13 (daus VEphemcris cpigraphiea, 
III. p. 227). 



THE FORUM. 51 

to represent its chief monuments. In one of them we 
easily recognise the Temples of Castor and of Saturn, 
and the basilica Julia, that is to say, the buildings 
on the western side. As the other was meant to be 
placed in front as its pendant, it must contain those 
bordering the Forum on the opposite side, the only 
one not yet laid bare. We recognise in it the 
^milian basilica and the Curia of Caesar. Thus we 
now possess the elements needed for a knowledge of 
the whole Forum. 

It is not, however, exactly the Forum which we have 
thus far been endeavouring to describe, but only the 
sumptuous buildings that surround it. The ancients 
did not confound these with the Forum itself.^ They 
reserve the name for the interior space extending 
between these temples and basilicas. This place, of 
which, so long as it was covered with rubbish, it was 
diflScult to form an idea, is now known to us. A part 
of it has been restored to us by the excavations, 

^ We have, then, in all, three tribunes of harangues : First, that of 
the Republic (rostra Vetera), near the church of St Adrian. It seems, 
indeed, to have still existed under the Empire, for Suetonius says that 
Tiberius pronounced the funeral oration of Auf:;ustus before the temple 
of Julius Caesar, and Drusus on the old tribune [bifariam laudatus est : 
pro wde Julii a Tibcrio, et pro rostrio veteribus a Driiso, Tiberii filio. 
— Suet., Aug., 100). The old tribune must have still retained the 
rostra of Antium, since Augustus caused the new one to be ornamented 
with the spurs taken at the battle of Actium. Secondly, the tribune 
of Caesar (rostra Julia), before the temple consecrated to him. Thirdly, 
finally, the one placed over against the Arch of Severus, and which 
some savants call the rostra capitolina. On what occasion and at 
what period this last tribune was constructed is not known, but 
Canina believed that he has found a reproduction of it in the bas- 
reliefs placed on the Arch of Constantine, which are of the time of 
Trajan. These are certainly the three tribunes of harangues {tre 



52 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

and we can imagine the rest. It was quite shut in on 
every side, and surrounded by the streets on which 
the buildings of which I have just been speaking, 
looked. It is not quite an oblong, as was thought, but 
rather a species of trapezium, wider towards the Capitol 
than at the other extremity. On the slabs of peperino 
that cover it, rise large blocks of stone, the supports 
of the statues and columns by which we know the 
Forum to have been encumbered. Eight of them are 
counted along the road in front of the basilica Julia. 
Towards the top, by the Arch of Severus, a wall is 
remarked, still covered with a few marble slabs, and 
pierced with deep holes, of which a part is unfortun- 
ately buried in the mass of the Bridge of Consolation. 
This wall seems to have supported the platform of 
another tribune of harangues, and it is thought that 
the holes were made for the insertion, according to 
custom, of the spars of ships. Near this tribune, in 
front of the Temple of Saturn,^ Augustus erected the 
"golden milestone," the centre of the Koman world, 
where all the highways of the Empire took their begin- 
ning.2 At this spot all the roads of the Forum joined, 
to proceed together to the heights of the Capitol, and 
here it is, as I said farther back, that we are sure to 

rostra) wliicli used to be shown to strangers at the end of the Empire, 
and which are noted in the Curiostim urbis Ilomce. They are found in 
Detlefsen's map of the Forum of the Republican epoch, which we 
have reproduced further back. Let us add that orators frequently 
spoke elsewhere than at the tribune, and that demagogues have more 
than once stirred up the populace from the steps of the Temple of 
Castor (Dion., XXXXIIL 6). 

^ Tacitus, Hist., 1. 2 : Milliarium aureum suboEdcm Saturni. 

• See No. 3 on the plan. 



THE FORUM. 53 

find the Via Sacra again, by whatever way it passed. 
At the moment when the hero of the Triumph was 
about to enter upon this steep incline, known as the 
Clivus Capitolinus, a sinister train divided from the 
joyous troop following his chariot. It was the van- 
quished who had been led throughout the day behind 
the conqueror, exposed all along the streets of Eome to 
the insulting curiosity of the crowd. The festival over, 
they took him to the Mamertine prison to put him to 
death.i This is the fate suffered by the two noblest 
foes of Eome — Jugurtha and Vercingetorix, guilty of 
having bravely defended the independence of their 
country. Meanwhile, the victor, continuing his course, 
passed near the little terrace where we find the elegant 
portico of the " Dii Consentes," and what are believed 
to be the offices of the notaries. Thence he reached 
the famous Temple of Jupiter, situated near the 
Tarpeian rock, and of which the foundations have 
recently been discovered under the Palazzo Caffarelli. 

IV. 

IMPRESSION FIRST PRODUCED BY THE FORUM — ABSENCE 
OF SYMMETRY — ITS SMALL EXTENT — THE VERY 
DIFFERENT USES IT SERVED — POLITICAL ASSEMBLIES 
— HOW ORATORS MADE THEMSELVES HEARD IN IT — 
HOW IT HELD ALL THE PEOPLE WHO CAME TOGETHER 
THERE. 

Being now approximately acquainted with the sites 
and the histories of the chief edifices of the Forum, it is 

^Cicero, Verr., V. 30: Cum de Foro in Capitolium currum flectere 
incipiunt, illos duci in carcerem julent. 



54 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

easy for us, in imagination, to repair and restore all 
these ruins, and picture to ourselves what the place 
must have been like ere time had reduced it to the 
state in which we see it now. Let us seek to realise 
the impression it would make upon us, could we behold 
it as it was in the last days of the Empire, on the eve 
of the invasion of the barbarians, when it was still the 
admiration of visitors. 

I think that in order to be duly struck by it, we 
should make a slight concession, and begin, which is 
always a difficult matter, by forgetting for a moment 
our habits and our prejudices. We are wont to put 
first among the merits of a public place its symmetry, 
its regularity, and its extent. It must be owned that 
the Forum appears somewhat to lack these qualities. 
It has the defect of all things not constructed according 
to a fixed plan. No architect regulated its proportions 
in advance, and distributed the monuments round about 
it ; it may be said to have been formed by the centuries. 
We have seen that it originally consisted of different 
and unequal grades. Overlooking a swampy plain rose 
the Comitium, which had above it the Curia, and then 
the Vulcanal, whence one ascended by a steep slope to 
the Capitol. In course of time these differences of 
level were partially masked by the construction of 
large buildings, but these edifices, erected at haphazard, 
at very different epochs, are not always in keeping ; 
they are heaped together without much order, and 
crowded one against the other. The great personages 
who governed the Eepublic being all anxious to leave 
memorials of themselves in Eome's most famous spot, 
no space about it has remained empty. We find 



THE FOEUM. 55 

several basilicas there, seven or eight temples, a palace 
for the Senate, three passages or janus for men of 
business, and five triumphal arches. Even the part 
lying between these edifices, and which should have 
been left vacant for the use of the public, was en- 
cumbered with trophies, shrines, columns, and, above all, 
with statues, which, to use Chateaubriand's expression, 
formed a whole dead nation amid a living one. Vanity 
had so multiplied them, that the Senate was occasionally 
obliged to have some removed. ^ Among the columns 
were some that must have taken up considerable room. 
They were surrounded by a balcony commanding all 
the Forum, and on days when a fortunate and grateful 
candidate gave the people a spectacle, the descendants 
of those in whose honour the columns had been raised 
had the right to come with their families to these 
species of tribunes, and watch from them the gladiators 
and the athletes. It is to be feared, then, that at first 
sight the Forum may strike us unfavourably ; that this 
accumulation of riches may weary the mind ; and that 
we may regret not to find a little more order, symmetry, 
and simplicity there. 

But such a first impression will hardly last, if we 
muse on the events and personages recalled by those 
edifices. There, in truth, may it be said with Cicero : 
" On whatever spot we tread, we awake a memory." ^ 
The Forum is not one of those public places found in all 
towns, and it would be unjust to apply ordinary rules 



1 Pliny, XXXIV. 6, 14. 

^ Cicero, Be Fin., V. 2 : Quacumaque ingredimur, in aliquam 
historiam ponimus. Cicero is here speaking of Athens. 



56 ARCHiT.OLOGICAL KA.MBLES. 

to it. We must not require it exactly to resemble 
others in its general plan and its dimensions, since it 
possesses the peculiar character and the special beauty 
of comprising in itself the entire history of a country. 
The vast number of its monuments, which at iirst some- 
what surprised us. explains and justifies itself by that 
of the glorious deeds whose memory they preserve. 
This first aesthetic defect removed, I think that our 
eye will soon become accustomed to the somewhat con- 
fused spectacle, and that we shall even find in it a 
certain picturesqueness not met with in the solemn and 
cold regularity of our own great public places. 

It is rather more difficult to clear the Forum from 
another fault with which it has been reproached ; and 
it would seem, indeed, not without reason. "What 
strikes one at first, on viewing it as a whole, is that it 
does not appear very large. On observing its slight 
depth and extent, one asks oneself how it could have 
sufficed for all the uses it served. Ancient authors tell 
us that it was the most frequented spot in l\ome. 
Idlers, of whom there are always so many in large 
towns, made it their meeting-place. Horace relates 
that he was accustomed to walk there every evening. ^ 
He was strolling, as was his wont, along the Sacred 
Way, the day when he met that bore who dogged his 
steps, in spite of his protests, and insisted on being 
presented to Miiecenas.^ Curiosity there found plent}* 
to satisfy it. Not to speak of the quacks of all kinds, 
of whom there was no dearth, there were sometimes 



^Horace, Sat., I. 6, 133. 

^Snt., I. 9, 1 : Ibam forte via Sacra siciif 7ncns est ynos. 



THE FORUM. 57 

genuine exhibitions of paintings. After the defeat of 
Greece, the masterpieces of her Art were often exposed 
beneath the porticoes, or in the temples, and amateurs 
crowded thither to see them. Occasionally victorious 
generals, as a device to heighten the effect of their 
victories, had the battles in which they had taken part 
painted by skilful artists, and exhibited them in the 
Forum. One of these, the Praitor Mancinus, carried 
complaisance so far as to stand beside the picture repre- 
senting his great deeds, to give explanations to those 
who should need them. This politeness charmed the 
people, who the following year named him consul.^ At 
the foot of the tribune, newsmongers and politicians met. 
They formed animated groups, eagerly discussing the 
latest event ; they spread alarming news ; they framed 
laws and plans of campaign, and they spared neither 
statesmen who had not the good fortune to be popular, 
nor generals who did not snatch \dctory at the first 
blow.- Near the same spot, below the first sundial 
erected in Rome, young men of fashion used to 
assemble, some carefully clean shaven, others with well- 
trimmed beards {aut imherles, aid lene harhati).^ Not 
far off, near the ^milian basilica, the exchange was 
held. The bankers had their offices along certain 
vaulted passages, called janus, where they were seen 
behind their tables, entering in their account-books the 
money people came to entrust to them, or that which 
they consented to lend on good security and at enor- 

1 Pliny, XXXV. 47. 

^They called them subrosirani. — Cicero, E'p.fam., VIII. 1. 
^Cicero, Pro Quint., 18 : Non ad solarium, non in campo, 7ion in 
conviaiis versatus est. 



58 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

mous interest. There, stewards of great houses, knights 
engaged in the farming of the public revenues, mer- 
chants, usurers, and borrowers met. Important 
business was transacted in the place — one got rich 
there quickly enough, but one got poor again more 
swiftly yet. How many fortunes, thought to be solid, 
came, as Horace says, and were shipwrecked between 
the two janus ! ^ 

The Forum was also occasionally used for popular 
spectacles, especially combats of gladiators. I need 
not say that it was very much crowded on those 
days. We learn from Cicero that this was the game 
preferred by the populace above all others, and to 
which it thronged with the greatest eagerness. In 
order to see it to greater advantage, people crowded 
not only the neighbourhood of the arena, but the steps 
of the temples, the terraces of the basilicas, and the 
streets rising to the Capitol and the Quirinal. The 
festival often lasted several days, and usually ended 
with a great repast, at which all present were regaled. 
Tables were raised on the open Forum, and who- 
ever chose came and sat down to them.^ In order 
that the people might see and eat more at their 
ease in spite of the solar heat, Caesar had the entire 
Forum covered with immense awnings (velaria), which 
sheltered everybody during the two or three days the 
festival continued.^ Dion tells us they were made 
of silk.* This magnificence soon became customary, 
and once, under Augustus, when the season was 



^Sat. II. 3, 18. 2 Pliny, XIX. 1, 6. 

3 Titus Livius, XXXIX. 46. ^Dion, LIII. 31. 



THE FORUM. 59 

very hot, the awnings remained spread throughout 
the Slimmer.^ A spectacle yet more common than 
the gladiatorial combats was afforded the curious by 
the funerals of great personages. The procession 
always crossed the Forum. Players on the flute, the 
trumpet, or the clarion, were seen to pass, deafening 
all assembled ; female " weepers," tearing their faces 
and plucking forth their hair; the crowd of friends, 
clients, and servants which was always attached to 
great houses ; and finally, those cars, or litters, bearing 
the ancestral images, whose number was necessarily 
considerable when the family was ancient. At the 
funeral of Marcellus there were more than six hundred. 
What is somewhat difficult to understand, and must 
have made the incumbrance incredible, is the cir- 
cumstance that these funerals did not turn aside 
from the Forum even when it was occupied by other 
assemblies. This is known from a celebrated anecdote 
related by Cicero, which many others repeated after 
him. The orator Crassus was one day defending a 
friend of his against M. Brutus, a very bad man who 
dishonoured a great name, and who, after squandering 
his fortune, earned his living by following the trade of 
accuser. The affair was lively, for Brutus did not 
lack ability, and the ardour of his hates sometimes 
made him eloquent. Just on that day he had spoken 
with great cleverness, and loaded his opponent with the 
most biting railleries. All at once, while Crassus was 
replying, the Forum was crossed by a funeral train. 
It was a lady of the Brutus blood being borne to the 

iDion., LIX. 23. 



60 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

pyre, surrounded by all the images of her ancestors. 
Crassus, quick to seize the opportunity, turned to his 
rival : " What dost thou calmly seated there ? " he 
asked; "what tidings shall that aged woman give of 
thee unto th}^ father, to all those great ones whose 
portraits thou beholdest, and to that Lucius Brutus who 
freed the people from the yoke of kings ? In what 
work, what glory, what virtue, shall she say thou art 
busied ? " ^ And he went on to reproach the unworthy 
descendant of so great a family witli all his conduct, 
and with all his life. Thus did a great Koman orator 
find among the sights offered by the Forum to its 
frequenters the occasion for one of his finest rhetorical 
efforts. 

But what above all drew the crowd to the Forum 
were the political assemblies. Those which met there 
were of three kinds : Firstly, the legislative comitia, 
where laws were voted ; secondly, the ordinary 
meetings {condones), where there was nothing to vote, 
and which were convened by a magistrate who had 
some communication to make to the people ; thirdly, 
political suits, pleaded in the presence of everybody, 
before a jury drawn by lot and presided over by the 

^ De oral. For this passage of Cicero, I have borrowed the trans- 
lation of M. A'^illemaiu. He has introduced the anecdote in his 
Tableau de la littiraturc du dix hnitiime sikle in a style slightly 
imaginative perhaps, but very interesting. His narration, which 
produced a great effect, commences thus : " Voyez d'ici le Forum tel 
qu'il ne I' est plus, cettc place immense, arine journalUre dupeuple roi," 
etc. There is more imagination than truth here, and we have just 
seen how far the Forum is from being "an immense place," etc. 
"What M. Villemain describes is not "the Forum as it is no more," 
but "the Forum such as it never was." 



THE FOEUM; &1 

praetor. Of these three kinds of meetings, the first — that 
is to say the legislative comitia — were the most impor- 
tant, and they were also the most rare. However 
great the mania of free people to continually alter their 
legal systems, there cannot be laws to make or un- 
make every day.' I add that it was not perhaps the 
one to which people repaired with the greatest eager- 
ness. Those great serious speeches, in which general 
ideas are developed and interests of State discussed, are 
less suited to popular gatherings than to limited meetings, 
comprising only the enlightened. The multitude usually 
takes very little pleasure in them ; they are too calm 
and too cold for it. In Eome, in order to arouse it, a 
personal question must be mixed up with the debates ; 
and hence the importance given there to political suits. 
They were as frequent as at Athens, and men of state 
passed their lives in accusing each other and defending 
themselves. Parties had no other means of attack than 
reciprocally to bring their chiefs to justice. The 
scenes in which a great personage, surrounded by his 
weeping family, his clients, and his friends, came upon 
the Forum to defend his honour and his fortune were most 
dramatic, and so the crowd was very anxious to assist at 
them. It was not less numerous at the assemblies con- 
voked by the magistrates for the purpose of communing 
with the people. The democracy is everywhere very 
exigent and very suspicions ; and in Eome, as else- 
where, it required that all whom it had nominated to 
public charges should render it a strict account of their 

' Of all Cicero's orations that have been preserved to us, only a very 
small number — two or three — were pronounced before the jieople in 
order to counsel it to vote a law or dissuade it from doin" so. 



6'2 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

conduct. It was a duty in which they did not fail 
when they desired to retain its confidence. Cato, one of 
the most accomplished types of the popular magistrate, 
always kept himself in touch with his constituents. 
He assembled them continually to relate to them in 
detail what he had done ; above all things, he told them 
his opinion with that droll animation so pleasing to the 
people, and talked to them of others and of himself, 
without regard for his adversaries, whom he loved to 
call profligates and rogues, while he never tired of 
praising his own sobriety and disinterestedness. The 
people took great pleasure in these communications, 
which made it feel its sovereignty. In moments of 
public excitement, when it was known that a tribune 
was to speak against the Senate or handle some burn- 
ing question, artisans deserted their work, shops 
were closed, and from all the populous quarters they 
crowded down to the Forum. On these days the 
Forum, encumbered with people, must have seemed very 
contracted. This was still more the case when those 
legislative comitia assembled of which I have just 
spoken. It was then necessary to take certain precau- 
tions with regard to the vote, to divide the place into 
thirty-live separate compartments in which to enclose 
the tribes ; and to construct those narrow passages 
called bridges, where the citizens could only pass one 
at a time to deposit their voting-tickets in the baskets. 
When we cast our eyes over the Forum as it exists 
to-day, and see the small space it occupies, it is indeed 
difficult to understand how it should have sufficed for 
all those complicated arrangements and contained the 
assembled Eoman people. 



THE FOEUM. bo 

It is true, as we have already said, that this Torum 
which we have before our eyes is not quite the Forum of 
the Republic, but that of the Empire. It is sometimes 
supposed that its size was only diminished under the 
Empire, and it is added that it might then be so with- 
out inconvenience, the people no longer having laws to 
vote; but this supposition is not exact. With the 
exception of the columns and statues which continued 
to encumber the centre of the place more and more, 
and of the triumphal arches which narrowed the 
adjacent streets, the new buildings were constructed on 
ground belonging to private people, outside the limits 
of the real Eorum. Ear from diminishing its extent, 
Cicero distinctly says that they enlarged it.^ On days 
when the assemblage was numerous, the people could 
group themselves on the steps or in the vestibules of 
the temples.^ Those who had not been able to find room 
near the tribune, packed themselves together in the 
two stories of the basilicas. Hence they could see very 
well, and, strictly speaking, they could hear. It is there- 
fore a mistake to think that the monuments built about 
the Forum ever prevented popular assemblies from being 
held there, and that it contained more people before 
they were constructed. 

There is, moreover, a reason why it could never 

^ Cic. , Ad Att., IV. 16 : TJtfomm laxaremus. 

^ A very large number of citizens could place themselves on the steps 
of these temples, when, as in the case of the Temple of Castor, they 
were much raised above the ground. People of my age remember that 
in 1849, at one of the festivals celebrated by the Republic, all the 
pupils of the colleges of Paris — that is to say, more than 5000 children 
— were placed on the steps of the Madeleine, and people were much sur- 
prised at the little room they seemed to take up there. 



64 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

have been so vast as our imagiuation loves to depict it. 
It was necessary that the orators should be able to 
make themselves heard in it. Whatever strength of 
lung we may suppose a Cicero or a Demosthenes to 
possess, it is impossible to picture them to ourselves 
pronouncing their orations on the Place de la Concorde. 
Ancient Eepublics found themselves in a great dilemma 
when constructing their public places. They had to 
make these large enough to contain a whole people, and, 
at the same time, small enough for the orator's voice 
not to be lost in them. Since the Eoman Forum was 
for many centuries the usual place of public assemblies, 
we must believe that it fulfilled both these conditions. 
It is a fact, and must be accepted, even though not 
very easy to understand. We must first admit, then, that 
orators could be heard there, even when not very well 
listened to, and that their voices dominated those noisy 
assemblies, sometimes compared to the waves of a 
troubled sea, and where people abused each other, spat 
in each other's faces, and flung stones and stools at each 
other's heads. It may well be thought that they did 
not attain to this without effort. They had to learn a 
particular mode of emitting the voice ; to sing their ora- 
tions as it were, and, above all, to accompany them with 
an expressive pantomime which made them more eas}'' 
to follow, hence the importance of rhythm and gesture 
in ancient eloquence. It is, thanks to these means, that 
they succeeded in making themselves heard. Perhaps, 
too, the situation of the Forum will help us to under- 
stand what at first appears to us a veritable prodigy. 
It is placed in a kind of hollow reached by steep slopes. 
Towards the Capitol, it is a genuine precipice. At the 



THE FORUM. 65 

opposite end, towards the Arch of Titus, the incline is 
more gentle, but still very decided, while on all sides, as 
it was customary to say, one " descended " to the Forum. 
When we think that this configuration of the locality, 
the small extent of the place, the hills surrounding it, 
the buildings that shut it in, are very favourable for the 
voice, it becomes somewhat less astonishing that orators 
should have made themselves heard in it and produced 
those great effects which history has handed down to us. 
We must also admit, in spite of the surprise we feel, 
that this Forum, which appears to us so confined, might 
have contained all those who wished to be present at 
some important suit, or who came to exercise their 
suffrages on a voting day. Perhaps, after all, the 
number of these voters may have been less than we 
are tempted to think ; possibly the place only sufficed, 
because a portion of those who had the right to come 
there remained at home. Towards the end of the 
Eepublic, in proportion as the popular assemblies 
became more stormy, wise and moderate people, who in 
all countries are the most timid, got into the habit of 
shunning them. When it was seen that they usually 
ended in sanguinary brawls, persons who feared noise 
ceased to appear at them. Cicero complains bitterly of 
this desertion of the comitia, and speaks of certain laws 
passed by just a few citizens, who had not even the 
right to vote. This was what explains how so many 
Eomans so easily accepted the Empire. They cared 
little enough about being deprived of political rights 
which they had themselves renounced. 

Yet under the Empire, the Forum ended by appear- 
ing too small. The popular assemblies then no longer 

E 



66 ARCH.'EOLOGICAL RAl^IBLES. 

existed, but the promenaders, the idlers, and the 
curious became more and more numerous, and strangers 
arrived from all the corners of the world. The ex- 
pedient was resorted to, not of enlarging the old Forum, 
which could not have been done without destroying 
ancient monuments, but of building others round about 
it. Ca3sar began, other princes imitated him, and, as 
each desired to eclipse his predecessors, the cost became 
each time more considerable and the constructions 
more handsome. Thus it was that they came to create, 
in the heart of this sovereign city, the finest assemblage 
of monuments and public places with which a town 
was ever honoured. A foreigner entering Eome by the 
riaminian Way, and who, after passing through the 
Forums of Trajan, of Nerva, of Vespasian, of Augustus, 
and of Cicsar, at length came to the ancient Roman 
Forum, where the beauty of the edifices was enhanced 
by the greatness of its memories, must have been 
strangely surprised at this sight. However great an 
idea he might have formed for himself in his own 
country of the marvels of Home, he was obliged to own 
his dreams far below the reality. He well felt that he 
was in the world's capital, and he went home full of an 
admiration that faded not for the town on which the 
whole universe had its eyes, and which, from the second 
century downward, was only spoken of as the " Sacred 
City." 



CHAPTER IT. 

THE PALATINE. 

The excavations of the Palatine, like those carried out 
on the Forum, have led to very curious discoveries. 
This hill, formerly occupied by the villas of great lords 
and the gardens of monasteries, v(rhere nobody might 
penetrate, has become one of the most interesting walks 
of Rome. I do not believe there is a spot where 
recollections of the past so crowd upon the memory, 
and where one more lives in mid-Antiquity. It must, 
however, be owned that this Antiquity was only given 
back to us in a very sorry plight, and persons allow- 
ing themselves to be beguiled by the tablet placed 
above the entrance to the Parnese Gardens, and believ- 
ing that they were really going to find the " Palace of 
the Caesars " again, would run the risk of being greatly 
surprised on seeing what really remains of it. There 
arc only a few ruins left, and, in order to see it 
such as it was, we must make a great effort of 
imagination. 

This effort is, however, necessary almost everywhere 
in Rome if one would feel some interest in visiting it. 
Everybody about to journey thither should be told this, 
in order to spare disappointment. Rome is not quite 
like other Italian towns — Venice, Naples, or Florence, 



68 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

for example — which impress the visitor at ouce. It 
does not produce all its effect so quickly, aud, in order 
to fully enjoy it, a sort of initiation is indispensable. 
There are many reasons which prevent the great 
monuments it contains from at first corresponding to 
the idea we had of them. We hurry, on our first 
arrival, to see the ruins of which we have heard so 
much, but they are usually fixed into modern 
houses, and for the first moment this common sur- 
rounding prevents us from seizing all their beauty. 
We hasten to visit the old churches dating back to tlie 
iirst centuries of Christianity, but having been very 
often repaired and rejuvenated, they have lost much of 
their true character and primitive originality. One is 
not much struck by them on a cursory view, nor is 
this rapid glance enough to enable us to appreciate 
them as they deserve. It may be said that each year 
thousands of hasty travellers pass through Home who, 
not giving themselves time to see it, carry away only 
an incomplete impression. Some, the most courageous 
and most sincere, dare to own their disenchantment ; 
others admire on trust and from pre-intention, in order 
to do like everybody else, and thus not have lost their 
journey. Let us not follow their example ; let us be 
at the pains to see again, more than once, those fine ruins 
which at first left us indifferent ; let our imagination 
help our eyes to understand them ; let us. in thought, 
endeavour to isolate them from their dull, uninteresting 
surroundings ; let us encircle them with the great 
memories by which they are ennobled, and assuredly 
all will then change its aspect for us. 

To understand and know Eome is a study, then ; a 



THE PALATINE. 69 

study requiring time and demanding some efforts, but 
this time is well employed, and these efforts promise 
us one of the greatest pleasures an intelligent man can 
give himself. Far from this pleasure being lessened by 
its postponement, we, on the contrary, find in it a 
special charm, because it is, so to speak, our work ; 
because we partly owe it to ourselves ; and because we 
are pleased with ourselves for what we did in order to 
win it. What completes it and lends it its finishing 
zest, is that it is coupled with a secret self-satisfaction 
and a certain feeling of pride that is liveliest in the 
most cultivated minds; that it calls for familiarity 
with the past and a full understanding of it ; and, 
finally, that dunces and fools can never more than 
imperfectly enjoy it. Other towns, even those we 
most love, only make us pleased with them; Eome 
possesses the unique privilege of at the same time 
delighting us with her and with ourselves. Let us 
add that, if the pleasure felt in visiting her does not 
come at once, it always grows with time. In studying 
all these monuments more nearly, we continually find 
new reasons for being struck with them. The more we 
view them, the greater charm we find in their sight, 
and we end by feeling the greatest difficulty in parting 
with them. Eome is the town of the world where 
curiosity and admiration least weary, and it has been 
remarked that those who have lived there longest are 
both the least inclined to leave it and the most desirous 
to return. Pope Gregory XVI., who was a clever man, 
always asked foreigners who came to take leave of him, 
how long they had stayed in Eome. When they had 
only remained a few weeks, he merely said : " Addio ! " 



i 



70 ARCHi*;OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

but when they had sojourned there several months, he 
always said : "-4 rivederci ! " 

These reflections, which apply to Rome generally, 
are, perhaps, still more appropriate with reference to 
the ruins of the Palatine than to all the others. It is 
there, especially, that the too hurried traveller is in 
danger of understanding nothing, and it is there that 
the curious lover of Antiquity, who takes time to 
learn, is sure to be largely repaid for his trouble. The 
Palatine, being the most ancient of the quarters of 
Eome, architectures of different epochs were more 
crowded together there than elsewhere. It had 
possessed great importance under each form of govern- 
ment, and the Kings, the Eepublic, and the Empire 
all left important monuments there, which for ten 
centuries were covered over with earth. Ptecent 
excavations have given them back to us, but, unfor- 
tunately, they have given them back all mixed up 
together. These edifices, having sunk one upon the 
other, re-appear simultaneously, and at first it appears 
as if one would never come to a clear understanding 
of them. But fortunately at Ptome each century had 
its particular manner of building, and each epoch used 
different materials. According as a wall is formed of 
peperino, of travertine, or of brick, or the work 
executed in what is called opus incertn7)i or opus 
rediculatum, one can approxiniatively tell its age. 
Moreover, in the manner of joining the bricks together, 
or laying the blocks, there are indications which do 
not deceive a practised archieologist. Lastly, one 
sometimes happens to find inscriptions on the leaden 
water pipes, and the bricks occasionally bear the 



THE PALATINE. 71 

mark of the factory whence they came, or even the 
name of the consul under whom they were made, 
thus ending all doubts. It is thus we have been 
enabled to distinguish with great probability the age of 
the monuments discovered. Let us profit by these 
guides in order to arrive at an understanding of what 
remains of the Palace of the Caesars, and endeavour to 
ascertain what recent excavations, have restored to us 
of the various historical periods of the old Pala- 
tine.^ 

I. 

HOW THE EXCAVATIONS ON THE PALATINE CAME TO BE 
UNDERTAKEN — ROMA QUA DRAT A AND THE WALLS 
OF ROMULUS — THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER STATOR — 
REMAINS OF THE EPOCHS OF THE KINGS — ANTIQUITY 
OF WRITING AMONG THE ROMANS, AND THE CONSE- 
QUENCES TO BE DRAWN FROM IT — THE PALATINE 
UNDER THE REPUBLIC — WHY EXCAVATIONS ARE 
ALWAYS SO PROLIFIC IN ROME. 

The Palatine is a hill nearly 1800 metres in circum- 
ference and 35 metres in height, placed like a kind of 
island in the centre of those which, together with it, 
formed the Eternal City. Although the smallest of all, 
" the others," says a writer, " appear to surround it with 
their homage, as their sovereign."" And it was 

^We are about to enumerate the chief monuments of the Palatine 
according to their age, and not in the order in which they present 
themselves to the traveller. 

^A cut, come a sovrana,fan le altre sei corona. — Guattani, Mon ined., 
January, 1785. 



72 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

indeed this hill which held the greatest place in the 
existence of Eome. As it was natural to believe that it 
must contain fine mementoes of its glorious past, it has 
since the Eenaissance been several times excavated. 
According to the custom of the day, mosaics, statues, or 
other objects of art were sought, and the curiosity or 
the cupidity of the explorers once satisfied, the ruins for 
a moment brought to liglit were hurriedly covered up 
with earth again. Serious and continuous works were 
only begun in our time through the initiative of France. 
In 1861 it occurred to the Emperor, Napoleon III. — 
whose passion for Roman history, and, above all, for 
the history of the Ciesars, is well known — to buy of 
Francis II., King of Naples, the Farnese Gardens, occupy- 
ing the north of the Palatine.^ This project met with 
many obstacles on the part of the Eoman court, which 
did not care to see France become so near a neighbour. 
It raised a thousand difficulties, which were not to be 
overcome without much trouble. The great French 
epigraphist, M. Leon Renier, who knew the importance 
of the acquisition, and had counselled it, had the 
honour to conclude the negotiations. When they were 
finished, and the Palatine belonged to France, he made 
known to the Emperor the architect who appeared to 
him best fitted to undertake the great works which it 



^ If a guide to the Palace of the Cffisars is needed, the one published 
by MM. C. L. Visconti and Lanciani, of which they have given a 
French edition {Guide du Palatin, Eome, Boeca), should be chosen. 
It is an excellent work, very clear, very learned, and very complete. 
As will be seen in the following work, I have used it a great deal. I 
have reproduced the map placed by ^IM. Visconti and Lanciani at 
the head of their book, almost exactly. 



PLAN OF THE PALATINE 



Scale 




TABLE 

I Clwas FciLoXirtLLS 
Z Portxay Muuioruiay 
'iTernfiLe a/'Jufiiter Stcuc 
'^BaJJxs afZ,iuia. 

5 Cryp.toportLco 

6 House o£ Ltuioy 

7 PoLSScxae/ 

8 Imjx^r-uiUIerrujCLfclR in-isi 

9 IjiTfterial box, in/the. Or, 

I QI'ra.etoruirv£ajTa,cke 

I I CLujuLs Victoj^-iee 
\ZI/otLse o£ thye, SoLoHers 



FOHVM 
BOWRIVM. 




TABLE r \ I 

1 CIUJUS FiX-LlXtuXULS 

Z. FortayMLLOorua^ 

3 TernfiZe. afJufhiter StcUor ^ 

5 Cryp.top^T'tLco 

6 Mouse- of LivicL/ 

7 FcLSsixae/ 

8 ImfXM'r'uxUlerruMijcle, irttheStCU^ 

9 IjTif ureal box, irutJvBr Graiul CLtca 
^^Tra.etoriaxv^arrajJzs ll ^^ 
II CliuLLS Victortse 
\2Mou^e of the, SoLdiers snuZ' SUujes 



THE PALATINE. 73 

was proposed to carry out there. This was M. Pietro 
Rosa, known to the learned by his topographical studies 
on the Roman Carnpagna. M. Rosa at once set to work 
with ardour, and was not long in justifying, by the most 
important discoveries, the confidence shown in him.^ 

These discoveries were not limited to the Imperial 
epoch. While searching, especially for the Palace of 
the Cfiesars, they found remains of the old town of 
Romulus, which might have been thought for ever 
lost. It was well known to have been built on the 
Palatine. History relates how the first king, having 
called around him all the adventurers of the neigh- 
bourhood, marked out its boundary in accordance with 
the Etruscan rites. They say that he harnessed an ox 
and a cow to the plough, and guided it all round the 
hill, raising the share at the spots where the gates 
were to be, and marking by a deep furrow the circum- 
ference of the town whicli he desired to found. This 
furrow, or rather the space left free beyond the line 
traced, formed what was called the pomcerium (pone 
muros) or sacred enclosure of the town, within which 
it was forbidden to bury the dead or to introduce 
strange gods. Its limits were marked by stones placed 
from distance to distance along the Palatine. In the 
time of Tacitus it was believed to be still known, 
and its position was pointed out.^ This was " Square 
Rome" {Roma quadrata), so called from the shape 
of the hill on which it was seated, or rather because 



^ Directly after the events of 1870 Italy bought back the Palatine of 
the Emperor Napoleon III., while he was still a prisoner in Germany. 
» Tacitus, Ann., XII. 24. 



74 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

it had been founded according to the rules of art of 
the Augurs, and represented on the earth that ideal 
space {templum) which the Augur formed in the sky 
with his stafif. In spite of the lapse of so many 
centuries, and so many revolutions, all trace of 
this old Eome has not disappeared in our time. In 
different parts of the Palatine the remains of the 
walls, constructed by the first founders of the city, 
have been discovered, and may still be seen. These 
are large blocks of stone, drawn from the hill itself, 
and on which, later on, the Coesars rested the founda- 
tions of their palaces. When the imperial palaces fell, 
the old remains covered by them were brought to 
light again. Not only have we here and there 
identified the boundary of primitive Eome, but its 
chief entrance is believed to have been found. Towards 
the Arch of Titus a road leaves the Sacred Way and 
wends straight up the hill. It is neither broader 
nor less steep than the rest, and is only distinguished 
from all the others known to us by the large size of 
the slabs forming its pavement. This was the Palatine 
road or ascent (dims palatinus)} Scarcely do we 
enter upon it, when the still visible supports of a 
large gate are met with. A little further on, enormous 
blocks of stone detached from a wall have rolled to 
the ground. The wall was the very one attributed 
to Eomulus ; the gate is much less ancient, but it is 
believed to have replaced that which served as chief 
entrance to Roma quadrata. It was called Vctus porta 
or porta Mngonia^ and is said to have received the 

^ See OD the plan, No. 1. ^ No. 2 on the plan. 



THE PALATINE. 75 

latter name from the bellowing of the oxen which 
left it in the morning to pasture in the swamps that 
afterwards became the Forum. When the Emperors 
had established themselves on the Palatine, they had 
a new gate built, much finer than the first, which 
caused it to be forgotten. There were then no longer 
oxen nor swamps, but great lords and courtiers trod 
the Palatine road all day long on their way to see 
the master. It is, however, probable that the new 
gate was built quite close to the old one, and that the 
one shows us the site of the other. 

But this is not the only discovery made on this 
spot. Whilst excavating to the right of the gate, they 
soon found a mass of large stones, in which it was not 
difficult to recognise the foundations of a very ancient 
temple. It can scarcely be doubted that this is the 
Temple of Jupiter Stator, one of the most celebrated 
of Eome, which, for want of a true site, archaeologists 
have hitherto placed a little everywhere, accord- 
ing to their fancy. Titus Livius relates the occasion 
of its construction. The Sabines, after seizing the 
Capitol, had thence flung themselves on the soldiers 
of Eomulus. The Eomans fled dismayed. " Already," 
says the historian, " the army in disorder had reached 
the old gate of the Palatine, when Eomulus, whom 
the fugitives had hitherto borne along with them, 
stopped, and raising his eyes towards Heaven: 'Jupiter,' 
said he, ' it was thou who didst encourage me to throw 
the foundations of my town upon this hill. I pray 
thee, father of the gods and of men, turn the enemy 
from us, calm my soldiers' fear, stop their shameful 
flight, and I will build thee here a temple which shall 



76 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

eternally recall to pcsterity that Eome was saved by 
thy help.'"! 

It is the remains of this temple, dedicated to the gOvd 
who stops all the flyers {Jupiter Stator), that have been 
found.2 This point once fixed, the old town of 
Eomulus is explored with tolerable ease. We have 
only to go over it in imagination, in order to find its 
chief monuments again. " Near Jupiter Stator," Titus 
Livius tells us, " lived Tarquin the Elder," and M. Rosa 
has placed a tablet on the spot where his house must 
have been. A little lower rose the Temple of Vesta, 
where the sacred fire burned, and its foundations are 
supposed to be still in existence under the church of 
Santa Maria Liberatrice. Behind St Theodore, on the 
slope of the hill opposite the Forum hoarium, is the 
spot where, down to the last days of the Empire, the 
curious and the devout were shown a little grotto 
shaded by a fig-tree, called the Lupercal. It is here 
that the she-wolf was said to have suckled the divine 
twins, so a bronze she-wolf, the work of an Etruscan 
artist, was placed there, and is believed to be the one 
found at the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
which now adorns the Capitoline museum. A little 
further on, just where the church of St Auastasia 
stands, was the great altar (Ara maxima) said to have 
been consecrated by Evandor, where, down to the end 
of the Empire, the victory of Hercules over Cacus was 
celebrated.^ Above, on the hill, was seen a monument 



1 Titus Livius, I. 2. 2 gge ou the plan, No. 3. 

^ Servius, Aen., VIII. 271 : Ara Herculis, sicut videmus kodie post 
januas circi maximi. 



THU PALATINE. 77 

more venerable yet, and which a true Roman could not 
visit without emotion. This was the house, or rather 
the cabin of Eomulus, " where," says a poet, " two 
kings were content with a single hearth," ^ and which 
formed a strange contrast with the marble palaces 
surrounding it. It was preserved and repaired with 
such care that it still existed at the end of the fourth 
century. Not only can we picture it to ourselves from 
the descriptions given of it by ancient writers, but a 
recent discovery has almost put it before our eyes. In 
excavating an old necropolis, near Alba, cinerary urns 
of terra-cotta were found, rudely worked, and represent- 
ing a kind of small round edifice with a pointed roof. 
We know it to be the type of the ancient cottage of the 
Latin peasant, built of reeds and covered with straw. 
They were therefore accustomed to build their tombs in 
the image of their houses, and the abode oi the dead 
was made like that of the living. The most ancient 
temples — those of Hercules Victor and Vesta — were 
also built on this model, and it was natural that the 
habitation of the kings should resemble that of the gods." 
These monuments which used to cover the Palatine no 
longer exist, but we know where they must have been, 
and we run but slight risk of mistaking, when we 
recognise some of them in the ruins heaped together on 
different parts of the hill. 

Perhaps it may be thought that I am treating these 
old memories too seriously, and that to appear to 
believe what Titus Livius or Denys of Plalicarnassus tell 

^ Prop. IV. 1, 10 : Unus erat fratrum maxima regna focus, 
" See on the Casa Eomuli, Rossi, Piantt di Roma, p. 1, << seq. 



78 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

US of those remote times is to do them too much honour, 
but, as Ampere has already remarked, " if it is easy for 
a savant in his closet to laugh at Eomulus and his 
successors; to see in the tales told us of them only 
extravagant fables, or explain them as myths devoid of 
reality, one does not feel quite the same assurance when 
one has just visited Eome. There, that past which at 
first seems so far off, so doubtful, draws near to us ; 
it is touched and seen. It has left of itself such deep 
and vivid traces that it is impossible to deny it all 
belief. To be exact, had nothing remained of those 
ancient centuries, one might think that the Greek 
chroniclers who first unravelled the annals of Rome had 
amused themselves by inventing all sorts of fables, in 
order some way or other to fill up the gaps of history. 
But, impudent liars though we may suppose them, they 
were not free to imagine everything according to their 
caprice, since they found themselves face to face with 
memories they were bound to respect. These memories 
could not be lost, because they were attached to in- 
destructible monuments as old as the very beginnings 
of the city. Generations passed the names of their 
founders from one to the other, and their sight recalled 
the disasters or the victories which had been the 
occasion of their construction. Annalists of the sixth 
century doubtless added much to these traditions. The 
imagination of the Eomans was dry and short, and they 
lacked the art of embellishing their history with 
marvellous fictions like the Greeks. As time effaced 
the memory of the past, popular fancy did not know 
how to repair these losses by new and charming 
inventions. At the end of a few centuries, nothing 



THE PALATINE. ?9 

remained of those ancient events but a few names and 
a few facts, on which it was easy to embroider a great 
many lies. But, if the lie covers all the surface, there 
must be a little truth beneath." 

Such are the ideas inevitably suggested by a 
visit to the Palatine. They possess the mind with 
peculiar force when one happens upon those great 
ruins of wall I have spoken of, which formed the wall 
of Eomulus. These walls are constructed on nearly the 
same system as those attributed to Servius, and can 
only be slightly anterior. Both are composed of blocks 
of tufa laid together, not united by cement, and kept in 
place by their weight alone. The arrangement of the 
layers is the same : the stones are placed alternately 
lengthways and endways. It is asserted that this 
manner of building belongs especially to the Etruscans, 
and that the Eomans had it from them. Such was 
their usual system. "They took everywhere," says 
Pliny, "what they thought worth taking {omnium 
utilitatum ra'pacissimi.)" But if this sensible race 
borrowed without scruple of its neighbours, or even of 
its subjects, whatever could be useful to it, it knew how 
to adapt what it imitated to itself. In introducing 
inventions from outside, the Eomans accommodated them 
to their peculiar genius ; they took full possession of 
them, as it were, modifying and renewing them accord- 
ing to their wants : they were pupils who soon became 
masters. Beule justly bids us remark that the 
Etruscans never produced great results in the grand 
art of building transmitted by them to the Eomans, 
and that it reached much higher perfection at Eome 
than among themselves. The Eomans gave it more 



80 ARCHyEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

and more their own character, and when they applied 
it to works of public utility, such as bridges, drains, 
or aqueducts, or to edifices especially admitting of 
grandeur and majesty, such as amphitheatres or arches 
of triumph, they evolved masterpieces from it. What 
shall I say ? It seems to me enough to look on those 
fine walls, remaining to us from the royal epoch on the 
Palatine or elsewhere,^ in order to foresee and divine the 
impulse which architecture is about to take in Eome, 
and in what direction its development will be. Those 
who built them, whoever they were, could not have 
been barbarians. Such great works suppose them to 
have reached a certain stage of civilization. They had at 
their command powerful means of placing the stones one 
upon the other, and raising them to such great heights. 
They were imbued with the consciousness of their 
worth, and with that confidence in their own duration 
which makes great peoples. They were not, like 
savages, content hurriedly to construct a temporary 
shelter to protect their sleep for a few nights 
against unforeseen attacks ; they thought of the future, 
and worked for their descendants. In the midst of 
these swamps and these forests, they took care to raise 
defences which were to last thousands of years. 

" They were already beginning," says Montesquieu, 
" to build the Eternal City." I add that they not only 

' The finest ruins remaining of the walls of Servius are on the 
Aventine, opposite the church of St Prisca, in the vigna Maccarani, 
now belonging to Prince Torlonia. A fragment of wall is found there 
30 metres long and 10 high, wonderfully preserved, and which 
strikes one with surprise and admiration. All who desire to have an 
idea of these ancient buildings should go and see it without fail. 



THE PALATINE. 81 

sought to make their walls solid. The manner in which 
those blocks are put together shows that they possessed, 
confusedly it may be, the instinct of grandeur, the feel- 
ing of proportion, and the taste for the kind of beauty 
which is born of strength. Assuredly, I repeat, they 
could not have been savages. 

An important discovery, made not long since, proves 
how well founded are these conjectures. The important 
works undertaken in different quarters of the town 
since 1870, and, above all, those near the Baths of 
Diocletian, have resulted in the finding of many 
remains of these fine walls of the epoch of the kings. 
On examining them more nearly than had hitherto been 
done, it was perceived that signs were inscribed on 
these large blocks of stone. They are sometimes rather 
lightly graven, and then it is very difficult to read them, 
but the workman has in most cases traced a deep 
furrow, which has resisted time, and is as visible now 
as on the day on which it was cut. These were pro- 
bably marks to indicate, sometimes the quarry whence 
the stones were taken, and sometimes the site for 
which they were destined. As they came from the 
neighbouring mountains, it was very necessary to inform 
those who conveyed them where they must be placed, 
in order to render any mistake impossible. These signs 
are very often letters, and most of those letters belong 
to the ancient Latin alphabet.^ 

This discovery, to tell the truth, was not quite a 

' These characters were studied in a very interesting memoir 
of the learned Barnabite, Father Bruzza (Ann. de Vinst, arch., 
1876). See also the discussion of M. Jordan, Topogr. I. p. 259, 
cl seq. ; Suetonius, Vespas,, 8. 

F 



82 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

surprise for the learned. Otfried Miiller had indeed 
maintained that the first Romans did not know how to 
write, and that they only learned the art towards the 
time of the Decemvirs, when the twelve tables were 
promulgated ; but M. Mommsen long since refuted this 
opinion. No doubt is any longer possible now that 
letters have been found graven on walls of the royal 
epoch. Hence it ceases to be absolutely improbable 
that written monuments of those remote ages should 
have been left. It was formerly the fashion to laugh at 
Suetonius, because he seriously relates that at the burning 
of the Capitol, under Vitellius, 3000 tables of brass 
perished, containing laws {Senahis Consulta) and 
plebiscites from the birth of the town {pmne ah exordio 
urhis)} People would not admit that, in the time of 
Augustus, there could still exist copies of the treaties 
concluded by TuUus Hostillius with the Sabines, and 
by Tarquin with the inhabitants of Gabii, although 
Horace says that they were the delight of antiquarians. 
Doubtless, it must not be too readily believed without 
proof that all these documents were authentic; but, 
after all, they may have been. We have at least no 
longer any right to disdainfully condemn the distinct 
testimony of historians like Denys of Halicarnassus, 
who affirmed that they existed, and that he had 
read them, without doing them the honour of dis- 
cussion. 

For it is now certain that the founders of Eome 
knew and practised the art of writing, and that they 
employed it for the ordinary uses of life. It was not 

* Suetonius, Vespas., S. 



THE PALATINE. 83 

with them the privilege of some classes of the nobles 
or the priests ; it was used by the undertakers of public 
works, and perhaps even by the workmen. It would 
certainly be ridiculous to pretend with Cicero that in 
the time of Eomulus science and literature already 
flourished at Kome, and picture to ourselves those 
senators, covered with the skins of beasts, as sages issued 
from the school of Pythagoras, and repeating its lessons ; 
but it would be a still greater error to make them 
downright savages, barbarians ignorant of all know- 
ledge and all the arts. Nor were they, on the other 
hand, quite epic heroes, as Niebuhr represents them. 
Ajaxes and Hectors came in a time when the exploits 
of [^warriors were only preserved in the songs of the 
rhapsodists ; for such hypotheses of legends and epic 
recitals found little room at a period when reading and 
writing were known. 

The city of Eomulus was not destined to remain 
long enclosed within the narrow boundary traced for it 
by its first king. It soon overflowed on every side, and 
ended by occupying all the surrounding hills. Thence- 
forth the Palatine was no longer Eome itself, as at first, 
but it always remained one of the chief quarters of the 
enlarged town. Celebrated temples were found there 
in great number — that of Jupiter Victor ; of the goddess 
Firiplaca, who reconciled households ; that of the 
mother of the gods, whence every year, on the 27th 
March, started the merry train of devotees and begging 
priests, who went through the streets of Eome singing 
light songs, to bathe the statue of the goddess in the little 
river Almo. There, also, some of the most illustrious 
citizens fixed their abode. They liked to lodge as near 



84 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

as possible to the Forum and to places of public business. 
We know the exact position of the most illustrious of 
all these houses, that of Cicero, if it be true, as MM. 
Visconti and Lanciani think, that a large building, 
whose remains are seen at the corner of the Velabrum, 
belonged to the portico of Catullus. The house of 
Cicero, as we know, was quite close to it. He was 
very proud of living on the finest site in Eome (m 
pulcherrimo urMs loco). He tells us that he tlience 
commanded the Forum, and that his view extended 
over all the quarters of the town. This house was 
associated with the vicissitudes of his fate. During his 
exile Clodius got the people to decree that it should 
be razed to the ground, and that in its place a temple 
to Minerva should be consecrated. After his return 
the Senate decided to rebuild it at the public expense, 
and Cicero obtained 2,000,000 of sesterces (400,000 
francs) for its reconstruction. Does not this read like 
a narrative of contemporary history ? 

Of all those private houses constructed during the 
Eepublic, which sometimes recall such great memories, 
only a few ruins remain, and the preservation of even 
these we owe to a strange chance. Those placed on 
the top of the hill were demolished in order to make 
way for the dwellings of the Ctesars ; but there were 
others situated in what is called by the barbarous term 
intermontium of the Palatine. The Palatine, like the 
Capitol, was originally divided into two by a narrow 
valley. It ran north and south, from the Arch of Titus 
to the grand Circus. This small valley was filled in 
by the emperors when they wished to extend and level 
the ground on which they were raising their palaces, 



THE PALATINE. 85 

and the houses that had been constructed there fell 
under the weight of the piled-up earth. Some, however, 
resisted, and the excavations have brought their ruins 
to light again. 

In this connection it is as well that I should recall 
one of the reasons, the chief perhaps, which make the 
excavations at Eome always so prolific. This fecundity 
usually somewhat surprises those who are accustomed 
to our own modern towns, and to the process by which 
we see them renewed before our eyes. Eome, like all 
capitals, has in the course of its long existence been 
several times rebuilt; but the manner in which the 
Eomans set to work to rejuvenate their town was less 
fatal than ours to the old ruins of the past. We now 
demolish ; in those days they were content to bury 
them, "We aim, above all things, at making straight 
avenues, and in order to facilitate circulation for the 
numberless vehicles which traverse our streets, we level 
the heights, we suppress the hills. It may then be said 
that the soil of Paris is continually being hollowed out ; 
that of Eome, on tlie contrary, was constantly rising. 
The great Eoman lords who wished to gladden their 
eyes with a more extended view, or who merely sought 
to enjoy purer air, in this pestilential climate, were 
accustomed to build their houses on immense founda- 
tions. Even when a new quarter was to be made, 
they began by filling in the old one with earth brought 
from elsewhere, and built upon that. One is pretty 
certain, then, in raising this earth, to find the 
primitive soil again, and the remains of ancient 
buildings. 

This is what has happened on the Palatine, as every- 



86 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

where/ and thus it is that under the palaces of the 
Csesars some houses of an anterior date have been dis- 
covered. There is one especially called, I know not 
why, the laths of Livia, and of which some chambers 
still remain in a sufficiently good state of preservation.- 
Graceful ornaments are seen on its ceilings, groups, 
figures, arabesques thrown into relief by a gold ground, 
a whole set of decorations, at once sober and elegant, 
which give us a very admirable idea of Eoman 
art under the Eepublic. The Palatine, about the 
time of Cicero and CcEsar, must have been filled 
with such houses ; but this is the only one that has 
survived. 



^ They had the same good fortune in the excavations which Avere 
made a few years since at San Clemente. Their history is widely 
known ; but I think it well to recall it, in order to show by a striking 
example what a wealth of discoveries may be expected in digging the 
soil of Rome. San Clemente is an admirable basilica of the twelfth 
century, containing fine frescoes of Masaccio. In carrying out some 
works there they brought to light, under the present basilica, a more 
ancient church, with curious paintings and columns of marble and 
granite. It went back to the time of Constantine, and had been used 
during seven centuries, down to the sack of Rome by Robert Guiscard. 
Encouraged by this success, they excavated more deeply, and were 
not long in finding, under the primitive church, a sanctuary of 
Mithras and some portions of a Roman house dating from the begin- 
ning of the Empire. Then, on going lower yet, constructions of tufa 
were discovered, certainly as old as the first years of the Republic, and 
perhaps even belonging to the period of the kings. Here, then, is a 
siiccession of monuments of all the epochs, and by descending a few 
steps one may have the spectacle of the entire history of Rome from 
its foundation down to the Renaissance. 

^ See No. 4 on the plan. 



THE PALATINE. 87 

II. 

THE HOUSE OF AUGUSTUS ON THE PALATINE — HOW, 
LITTLE BY LITTLE, IT BECAME A PALACE — WHAT 
REMAINS OF IT — EMPLOYMENT OF MARBLE IN THE 
IMPERIAL EPOCH — NEW PROCESSES IN THE ART OF 
BUILDING — THE PALACE OF TIBERIUS — THAT OF 
CALIGULA — THE CRYPTOPORTICUS WHERE CALIGULA 
PERISHED — THE HOUSE OF LIVIA AND ITS PAINTINGS 
— THE PALACE OF NERO. 

"With the Empire new destinies begin for the 
Palatine : it then becomes the dwellings of the Csesars, 
and, as Tacitus expressed it, the centre of the Eoman 
world {arx imperii). In his youth Augustus lived near 
the Forum ; a little later on, when he was still only one 
of the ambitious ones who coveted the succession of the 
great Dictator, he bought a somewhat modest house upon 
the Palatine which had belonged to the poet Hortensius. 
It contained neither marbles nor mosaics, and was 
only ornamented with commonplace porticoes sustained 
by stone columns. Yet it was the beginning of those 
imperial palaces which, continually spreading, ended by 
covering all the hill. The house of Augustus grew 
little by little with its master, and it is not uninter- 
esting to study the successive additions it received : 
for in the adroit manner in which, insensibly, and 
without shocking any one, he made the dwelling of 
a private individual into that of the chief of the 
State, I think we find the whole policy of this clever 
personage. 

In seeking a secret reason for all his actions, one 



88 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

runs no risk of rashness. Even in his most intimate 
life it was his wont to leave nothing to chance, and he 
is known to have written his conversations with his wife 
beforehand, for fear of saying a little more than he 
wished to do. We must therefore believe that if he 
chose the Palatine above all the other quarters of Eome 
for the location of his abode, he had some motive for so 
doing, and these motives are not very difficult to find. 
It was on the Palatine that the ancient kings of Eome 
were said to have lived. Augustus was most anxious to 
put himself into their company, and when he determined 
to give up the name of Octavius, which the proscrip- 
tions had brought into disrepute, and to take a new one 
he was first tempted by that of Eomulus, and he would 
have preferred it to the others had not the violent end 
of the first king seemed an evil omen for his successor- 
It is certain, then, that in taking up his position on the 
hill which had been the seat of royalty, he hoped to 
inherit something of the respect by which those ancient 
memories were surrounded. So he, as well as those who 
came after him, took great care to preserve and repair 
all that remained on the Palatine of that distant past. 
It has been remarked that the imperial palaces often 
respectfully turn aside from ancient ruins, the precau- 
tions taken not to include them in the new construc- 
tions being still visible. It was doubtless thought that 
those venerable monuments of the ancient kings of 
Eome protected and consecrated the habitation of the 
new masters of the Empire. 

Augustus also made a great point of doing nothing 
hastily. His great art was to manage transitions with 
caution, to avoid scandal and surprise in all things, and 



THE PALATINE. 89 

to accomplish the gravest changes without noise. He 
did not fail to proceed thus on the present occasion, 
although it was apparently of less importance. He 
knew that a monarch must have a palace, and that the 
master of the world could not lodge like a private 
individual. So he resolved to enlarge the house of 
Hortensius, which was no longer adequate to his fortune. 
After his victory over Sextus Pompey, when his power 
was acknowledged by all Italy, which he had just 
delivered from the fear of a servile war, he ordered his 
stewards to purchase a certain number of houses sur- 
rounding his own, and demolish them. As these demoli- 
tions might set suspicious minds thinking, he caused it 
to be given out that he was not working for himself 
alone, but in the public interest, and that he desired to 
consecrate part of the ground to religious edifices. 
And he really had the famous Temple of Apollo Palatinus 
built, together with the Greek and Latin libraries, of 
which mention is frequently made by writers of that time. 
The magnificence of these buildings alone attracted public 
attention, and it was scarcely noticed that at the same 
time the house of the prince was also growing larger, 
and changing its aspect. A short time afterwards the 
new palace was destroyed by fire. It was customary in 
Eome, after a misfortune of this kind, for the friends of 
him who had been its victim to club together and 
help him repair his losses, these voluntary con- 
tributions standing in lieu of our insurances. The 
fire on the Palatine was a natural occasion for showing 
how many friends Augustus possessed. All the 
citizens of Eome hastened to bring him their offerings ; 
but he would not accept them. He only took a trifling 



PO AKCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

sum, a denarius at most, per person, and rebuilt his 
house at his own expense — only he profited by the 
opportunity to rebuild it larger and more beautiful. 
When he was named Pontifex Maximus, instead of 
doing like his predecessors, and going to live in a 
special building near the Temple of Vesta, he remained 
in his own house and contented himself with raising a 
Temple of Vesta in it. Thus ancient usage seemed to be 
preserved, and the Pontifex Maximus was still near the 
divinity who protected Eome. In a curious and often- 
quoted passage, Ovid has taken pleasure in describing 
the house of Augustus for us, as it was towards the end of 
his reign. Exiled to the ends of the earth, and full of 
regrets for Eome, whither he was forbidden to return, 
the poor poet sent his verses to entreat for him. He 
represents them wandering in this city, where they have 
become strangers, obliged to ask their way of the 
passers-by, and seeking above all the dwelling of him 
who so cruelly punishes, but can also pardon. The 
directions they receive are so precise that we can still 
follow the road with them. There is first the Forum 
and the Sacred Way. " See," they are told, " here to 
the right is the gate of the Palatine, near the Temple 
of Jupiter Stator." ^ A little higher a house more 
beautiful than the others is seen, " and worthy of a 
god." It is surrounded by temples, adorned with arms 
and a shield ; an oak crown shades its entry, and 
laurels are planted at the two sides of the door. Those 
laurels, that crown, solemnly awarded to Augustus by 
the Senate " in the name of the citizens he had saved," 
announced the dwelling of the world's master. 

lOvid, Trist„lll. 1. 



THE PALATINE. 91 

The works of these late years have not yet restored 
the palace of Augustus to light, but the verses we have 
just cited tell us where to seek it. It was near the 
Temple of Jupiter, above the Palatine gate, — that is to 
say, at the spot covered by the gardens of the Villa 
Mills. Excavations were made there in 1775 by the 
Abbe Eancoureil, to whom the ground belonged, and 
under the ruins heaped up from everywhere, a two- 
storied house was found, whose arrangements were 
easily recognised. The upper storey had naturally 
much suffered, but the lower one was almost entire. 
Some of the rooms were filled with rubbish ; others 
were empty, so that people could go through them 
and, what is more sad, could plunder them. They 
still kept their stucco, their precious pavements, and 
their marble linings attached to the walls by steel 
cramps. Charming pictures, much more delicate than 
those of Pompeii, adorned their ceilings. Admirable 
statues — among others the Apollo Sauroctonos, now in 
the Vatican — were found there intact. Great care 
was taken not to leave any object of art behind, 
from which any profit could be drawn. As for the 
remains of columns and pavements, they were care- 
lessly removed, loaded on several carts, and sold in 
the lump to a marble dealer in the Campo Vaccina. 
The owner, a jealous amateur, as well as a skilful 
trafficker, kept his discovery as close as he could. He 
would not let other archaeologists come near, and 
it is related that the celebrated Piranesi, who wished 
to see it, got into the garden by night like a 
thief, at the risk of being devoured by the dogs, 
and drew the ruins by moonlight. We still have 



92 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the plan which he hurriedly made of them in the 
course of his adventurous excursion, and, what is 
better still, that of the architect Barberi, who carried 
out the excavations under the direction of Ean- 
coureil.^ 

A glance at Barberi's plan suffices to show that 
this house, thought with much probability to be the 
palace of Augustus, resembled in its general arrange- 
ments all Eoman houses. It contained an interior 
court, or peristyle, on which the different apartments 
of the palace opened. These apartments comprised a 
series of round, square, and rectangular rooms, corre- 
sponding pretty exactly with each other, in which 
the architect has apparently sought to unite variety 
with symmetry.'* Two octagonal rooms, even, were 
found with forms so capricious that they recalled 
to those who saw them the fantastic constructions 
of Boronini. What at first caused some surprise, 



^ Barberi's plan was reproduced by GuaLtaui iu 1785, in the 
Jilonumetiti antichi inediti cli Roma, with very curious drawings of 
the chief monuments then found, and which were afterwards scattered 
or destroyed. A reduction of Barberi's plan will be found on our map 
of the Palatine. This part of the hill cannot now be seen ; but it is 
said that it will shortly be opened to the public, and that the works 
destined definitely to give us back what remains of the palace of 
Augustus will ere long be resumed. 

Among the rooms found in the house of Augustus is one wanting 
(as we know) in the chateau of Versailles, and which I will designate 
by its Latin name of sterqinlinnom. It is a genuine monument. 
Guattani, who asks leave to speak of it (senza vcrgognct) describes it in 
detail, and takes occasion to bid us remark quanto gli miiichi fossero 
ingegnosi nclV invenzione eel ii^o delle commodita le piu indispensaMli e 
necessarie all' mnana vita. 



THE PALATIXE. 93 

was to see that when these rooms and chambers are so 
numerous, they are generally very small, and that 
not one of them appears sufficiently extensive to 
serve for official receptions.^ But Augustus, as we 
know, affected to live at home like an ordinary 
citizen. He wished to pass for a man, orderly, econo- 
mical, and moderate in his tastes. He slept upon 
a low and hard bed ; he only wore clothes woven by 
his wife or his daughter, he never had more than 
three dishes served at his table, and he takes great 
care to tell us in one of his letters that he sometimes 
fasted in the morning " more scrupulously than a 
Jew keeping Sabbath." There is, however, something 
of hypocrisy in this simplicity which he so com- 
placently displays. Although he affected modest airs, 
his house inside, as we have just seen, was sumptuous. 
This prince, who always extolled ancient usages, 
nevertheless made a revolution in the manners and 
habits of his time. No one more than he assisted in 
the progress of the luxury he was in the habit of 
deploring. It is related that he caused to be read 
before the Senate and the people an old speech of 
Eutilius "against those who have the mania for 
building." He forgot that he had himself set the 
taste and the example by his magnificent construc- 
tions, and that a good part of the reproaches addressed 
by him to others recoiled upon himself. 

" I found Rome of brick," he sometimes said, " and 



' AVhen Augustus, grown old, wished to assemble the Senate at a 
shorter distance from him, he convoked it in the Temple of Apollo 
Palatinus.-A. Gelle, Aug. 29th. 



94 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

I leave it of marble." M. Jordan rightly bids us 
remark that never was metaphor more a truth. Before 
Augustus, marble was seldom used in Eoman build- 
ings ; under the Empire it came into general use. Not 
princes alone adorned their dwellings with it; it was 
seen at Pompeii even in the shops of fullers and wine 
merchants. But it is on the Palatine that it especially 
abounds. Nowhere is it found in such quantities, 
and one has some difficulty in imagining how the 
architects who built the palaces of the Caesars could 
so easily manage to get these rare and precious marbles, 
which came from all parts of the world, if a discovery 
made some years age did not help one to understand. 
On the banks of the Tiber, not far from that strange 
Monte Testaccio, formed from the sherds of broken 
vases, was found in 1867 an ancient Eoman harbour. 
The rings which attached the vessels to the stone 
quay, the steps by which the freight was lowered 
or raised, are still visible. Around the harbour large 
magazines were built, in which merchandise was 
temporarily piled after its disembarkation. "When 
first discovered these still contained a large number 
of blocks of marble, on which the hewing process 
had been commenced. The inscriptions graven on 
these blocks, like those on the stones of the old 
walls of Servius, give us curious information con- 
cerning their origin and the manner in which they 
were brought to Eome.^ The most celebrated quarries 
in the entire world, those which produced the most 

1 It is again the indefatigable Padre Bruzzi who has gathered these 
inscriptions and explained them in his memoir, entitled Iiiscrizioni 
dei marTTii grezzi. 



THE PALATINE. 95 

renowned marbles, belonged to the Emperors, who 
reserved them for the monuments they caused to be 
erected. The works undertaken and the number of 
workmen that had to be employed on them, became 
so considerable under Trajan, that a special administra- 
tion {ratio marinorum) had to be formed which was 
doubtless dependent on that of the privy domain 
{ratio patrimonii). Each quarry was directed by a 
steward of the Emperor {procurator Ccesaris), who 
had under his orders all kinds of officials — secretaries, 
superintendents, and artists. The workmen were very 
numerous, and in great part composed of people con- 
demned to the mines by the tribunals of the Empire. 
These unfortunates, as a rule but little fitted for such 
rough labours, came to bury themselves alive in these 
detested caverns under the hard rule of slaves or 
freedmen. It was one of the severest punishments 
a judge could inflict, and during the persecutions 
it was very often applied to the Christians. To have 
hewed the marble from the quarry was not all — it 
had to be brought to Eome. Erom the ports of Greece 
and of Asia, of Alexandria and of Carthage, heavy 
ships were always starting, laden with enormous 
blocks, which crossed the sea with infinite trouble 
and exposed to all kinds of dangers. As large vessels 
could not ascend the Tiber, they unloaded at Ostia, 
so the Government had established an entire adminis- 
tration there, charged to receive the marbles and 
forward them to Eome. Medium-sized blocks were 
placed on barques of ordinary dimensions; but for 
monolith columns, colossal statues, or granite obelisks, 
special craft had to be constructed. Let the reader 



96 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

imagine the expense involved in these complicated 
operations, and the money that must have been paid 
to these thousands of workmen, officials, and sailors. 
Let him picture to himself what the marble cost from 
the day it left the quarry to that on which it was 
brought to the studio of the artist who was to cut it. 
But it was necessary to strike the eye of the crowd, 
and always give it fresh marvels to admire ; it was 
indispensable that the public happiness, of which 
mention is so often made in inscriptions and in 
medals, should shine in the sight of all. In order 
that people might not be tempted to accuse the 
decrees of the Senate of mendacity — which at the 
accession of each prince celebrated the re-establish- 
ment of prosperity and the assurance of the peace 
of the Empire — in order to give manifest proofs of 
this prosperity festivals had unceasingly to be increased 
and monuments multiplied. And thus, from Augustus 
downward, magnificence became a political institution 
and a means of governing the world. 

This policy was singularly favoured by fortunate 
circumstances : at the very moment when the princes 
plunged into these magnificent constructions in order 
to busy and dazzle the people, a kind of revolution 
was being accomplished in the art of building, which 
rendered their prodigality more easy. During several 
centuries, M. Choisy tells us in his learned work,^ 
the Eomans had used for their monuments enormous 
blocks of stone, rough or cut, but always placed one 
upon the other without cement. They never quite 

^ Jj'arl da baiir cliez les Homains, par A. Clioisy, Faris, 1873- 



THE PALATINE. ' 97 

abandoned this mode of construction, in which each 
stone awoke the idea of a difficulty overcome, and 
gave the entire edifice an air of power and grandeur ; 
but as it was slow and costly, they of the Empire 
preferred another. Instead of composing the body 
of their monuments of large blocks painfully heaped 
up, they got into the habit of using irregular materials, 
put together in fragments and joined by mortar. This 
process, which they doubtless did not invent — I said 
just now that they rarely invented — but of which 
they first made a general and methodical use, offered 
wonderful advantages to people who wished to build 
cheaply and at small expense. "It allowed of their 
raising colossal vaults with the help of bricklayers 
alone, and without other materials than lime and 
pebbles." The source whence they had it, and the 
period of trials and gropings in the dark which tiiey 
passed through ere they learned how to use it, are 
not now known to us. M. Choisy bids us remark 
that the Pantheon is one of the most ancient, and, 
at the same time, the finest of the monuments built 
on this system. It was, therefore, under Augustus that 
it reached its perfection. It was so conformable to 
the practical sense of the Eomans, and so useful to 
their policy, that it lasted throughout the duration 
of the Empire. "Amidst the general decline of the 
arts," says M. Choisy, "the good traditions of Eoman 
building were perpetuated without alteration, and 
without progress. Under the Antonines, they did not 
build otherwise than under the Caesars." It was the 
employment of these economical and rapid processes, 
which were successfully used until almost the last 

G 



98 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

day of Eorne, that rendered the great constructions 
of the Empire possible. 

Tiberius was not so prodigal as Augustus, nor was he 
so fond of building, yet there are some mementoes of 
him on the Palatine. It seems that he did not inhabit 
his predecessor's house, but had his palace apart, which 
was called by his name {Domus Tiberiana). It is 
several times mentioned in the accounts of the 
historians, and what they tell us makes the spot where 
it was situated known to us. Among these narratives 
there are some which it is impossible to forget. Tacitus 
relates that, on the 15th January 69, the Emperor Galba 
was making a sacrifice in the Temple of Apollo, near 
the palace of Augustus. He had at his side one of his 
friends Otho, who coveted the Empire. The gods 
seemed adverse ; the signs observed in the entrails of the 
victims were unfavourable ; and an aruspice announced 
to the emperor an imminent peril. Otho rejoiced ; for 
he was not unaware that the moment approached when 
the conspiracy hatched by his friends against the old 
emperor must break out. Suddenly one of his freed- 
men comes for him, and, on a word agreed upon, takes 
him away with him. Leaning upon his arm, Otho 
traverses " the house of Tiberius," descends thence on 
to the Velabrum, and, turning to the right towards the 
Forum, arrives near the Temple of Saturn, about the 
Golden Milestone, whence started all the roads of the 
Empire. There he meets twenty-three soldiers of 
the prsetorian guard, who proclaim him emperor, throw 
him into a litter, and take him to the camp, "while 
Galba," says Tacitus, "continued to weary with his 
prayers the gods of an Empire that no longer belonged 



I 



THE PALATINE. 99 

to hini."^ The house of Tiberius must therefore have 
been placed to the north of the Palatine on the same 
side as the Velabrum. It was probably an old dwelling 
of his family, which he had caused to be enlarged, in 
order to put it on a level with his new fortune. Only 
a few small chambers now remain of it, which must 
have been the lodgings of slaves. Perhaps more will 
be found when the gardens still covering the ancient 
buildings have been excavated. 

The palace of Caligula was a little higher, near the 
angle of the Palatine, looking towards the Eorum. It 
is said to have been sumptuous, and that it was adorned 
with paintings and statues taken from all the famous 
temples of Greece. But the Palatine was not enough 
for Caligula; he pushed on his operations as far as 
the Forum, and turned the Temple of Castor into the 
vestibule of his house. By dint of hearing himself 
called a god, he had got to take his divinity seriously, 
and treated all the inhabitants of Olympus on a footing 
of equality. Not content with having had a temple 
raised for himself alone, where peacocks, parrots, and 
rare birds were sacrificed to him, he wished to take his 
share in the homage offered to the other gods, his 
colleagues. He often came to the Temple of Castor, 
seated himself gravely between the two Dioscuri, and 
thus yielded himself to the adoration of the nations. 
It is related that he one day saw among the crowd of 
devotees a shoemaker, who burst out laughing, and that 
he asked him, probably in order to give him an 
opportunity of repairing his fault, what effect he pro- 

1 Tacitus, Hist., I. 27. 



too ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

duced on him. " The effect of a great fool," replied the 
shoemaker. What is somewhat surprising is, that 
Caligula forgave him the boldness of his reply. But he 
one day got angry with Jupiter Capitolinus, the great 
Eoman god, whom he doubtless accused of lack of con- 
sideration towards him. He was often seen, trans- 
ported with fury, to murmur menacing words in the 
ear of the wooden statue. " One of us must disappear," 
he repeated to him, and it was feared that he would 
have the head of the venerable image cut off, and 
replace it with his own, as he had done to so many 
other gods, when he suddenly calmed down. " Jupiter," 
he said, " had begged his pardon ; " and abruptly passing 
from fury to all the excesses of passionate affection, he 
would leave his new friend no more. In order to be 
nearer to him, and to be able to go and see him freely at 
every hour, he had a bold bridge built, which passed 
over the highest edifices of the Forum, and joined the 
Palatine to the Capitol. 

This bridge was destroyed at an early date, and we 
have kept nothing of it ; but the memory of Caligula is 
not therefore less lively on the Palatine. It remains 
attached to another ruin of the imperial dwelling which 
the excavations have given us back. Not far distant 
from the old Mugonia Gate, near the Temple of Jupiter 
Stator, there has been found one of those passages, called 
by the Komans cryptoporticos, which dived into the 
earth, and made it possible to pass from one habitation 
to another without crossing the streets or public places.^ 
This is one of the longest known. It begins quite close 
to the Clivus Falatinus, skirts the houses of Tiberius, 
See No, 5 on the plan. 



THE PALA-TINE. 101 

and Caligula for more than 100 metres, and then, 
turning abruptly to the right, continues to the spot 
where it reached one of the palaces, now destroyed. 
It must have been carefully decorated, and received 
light from openings made in the roof. It is here, 
in this doubtful light, that, on the 24th January of 
the year 41, a terrible event occurred, of which the 
historian Josephus has related all the details for us.^ 
Caligula was at iirst so loved by all the Eomans that 
they are said, in three months, to have immolated more 
than 160,000 victims as thank-offerings to the gods 
for his accession. But three years sufficed to make 
himself feared and detested by the whole world ; so a 
conspiracy was formed, directed by the Military Tribune, 
Cassius Cherea, to deliver the Empire. Cherea, although 
no longer young, preserved certain habits of elegance in 
his dress and of affectation in his speech — an air of 
carelessness and softness — which made him thought 
less energetic than he was. But under this foppish 
appearance there was a soldier's soul; and he was, 
further, a Eepublican who remembered the old Govern- 
ment in the midst of a people eager to flatter the new. 
Caligula, as insolent as he was cruel, ceased not to load 
him with affronts. Every time the Tribune came, accord- 
ing to custom, to ask for the watchword, the prince, in 
order to ridicule his effeminate habits, delighted to give 
him some low or obscene word, which made Cherea 
the laughing-stock of the officers and soldiers. He 
also seemed to pick him out for disagreeable em- 
ployments. One day he was ordered to examine 
a female comedian, whose lover it was desired to ruin ; 

* Josephus, ArUiq. J%id., XIX. I, 15. 



102 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

but the comedian, in spite of the most frightful suifer- 
ings, refused to say anything that could compromise 
him she loved. Cherea, displeased with himself and 
others, ashamed of the part he was made to play, and 
indignant at the affronts which he was forced to swallow, 
decided to slay the prince. After much hesitation, it 
was decided to carry out the project during the Palatine 
games that were given in honour of Augustus. These 
games were celebrated at the foot of the hill where, 
later on, the Arch of Titus rose. A temporary wooden 
theatre was built there, to which the crowd thronged 
during several days. That day it was more numerous 
than ever, for in the evening a strange spectacle was 
to be given — a representation of scenes in hell, by a 
troupe of Egyptians and Ethiopians. Towards noon the 
Emperor was in the habit of returning for a while to 
his palace to take a meal and rest. It is here that the 
conspirators awaited him. He left the theatre with 
his uncle Claudius and a few friends, preceded by the 
German soldiers who formed his usual guard. When 
he had passed the gate of the Palatine, he let his suite 
proceed by the road leading to the palace, and he him- 
self turned aside to follow the cryptoporticus. He wished 
to see the children of noble birth, whom he had sent for 
from Asia for the games which he intended to give the 
people. They were employed in this retired spot in singing 
hymns and dancing the Pyrrhic dance. Cherea, who was 
the Tribune on duty, darted behind Caligula. He took 
care to send away the curious and the courtiers, saying 
that the Emperor wished to be alone, and followed him 
with the conspirators ; then, approaching while he was 
talking to the young people, dealt him a sword-cut on 



THE PALATINE. 103 

the head. Caligula, who was only wounded, rose with- 
out saying anything, and endeavoured to flee. But he 
was at once surrounded by the accomplices of Cherea, 
who stabbed him thirty times with their daggers. The 
soldiers of the guard ran up at the noise, and the con- 
spirators, who could no longer go back, because they 
would have met the Emperor's officers and the Ger- 
mans coming to avenge him, continued to follow the 
passage as far as the spot where, according to Josephus, 
was the house of Germanicus, and by this way it was 
easy for them to escape. 

The frightful tumult which followed the death of the 
Emperor should be read of in the historians. The 
Germans, who regretted him, killed all whom they 
found in their way round about the passage and the 
palace : the innocent and the guilty alike fell beneath 
their blows. Meanwhile the event began to be bruited 
in the theatre. No one dared to believe, although 
everybody wished it, and, says Suetonius, what well 
proves the terror under which people lived, is that it 
was imagined that the prince himself had set the news 
of his death going, in order to have the opportunity of 
punishing those who should seem to be glad of it. The 
strangest rumours circulated. People did not know what 
to do, and no one had the courage to display his feelings 
or to leave his place when the Germans arrived, more and 
more drunk with blood and anger, and seeing accomplices 
of the assassins everywhere, threatened to fling them- 
selves upon the unarmed crowd. They were quieted 
with great difficulty, and the spectators fled in the midst 
of frightful disorder. 

The crypto'porticus in which the tragic events occurred 



104 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

is almost entirely preserved. It can be traversed in its 
whole length, and the imagination easily pictures to 
itself the terrible scene that passed in it eighteen 
centuries ago. We see again that prince, worn by 
excesses of all kinds, that old man of nine-and-twenty 
years, as Seneca and Tacitus have depicted him in 
indelible touches, with that little head upon an 
enormous body, those hollow eyes, that livid hue, that 
wild glance, that countenance which nature had made 
sinister, and which, by a strange coquetry, he took 
pleasure in rendering more terrible yet. We follow the 
assassins from the moment when they entered the 
passage with him, to that when they escaped by the 
house of Germanicus, seeking an asylum of the father 
after having killed the son. By a happy chance this 
house perhaps still exists, for some scholars think it the 
one found nearly intact at the extremity of the passage.^ 
It was discovered by Signor Eosa in 1869, and is 
certainly one of the most curious remains of the Palatine. 
There has been much discussion as to whom it could 
have belonged. Seeing it so close to the palace of 
Tiberius, it was natural to think it his family house, 
the one where he was born, and which his father 
bequeathed to him when dying. It was, indeed, the 
first name given to it ; but some time afterwards there 
was discovered in the foundations a leaden water-pipe, 
on which was read at intervals the words : Julicc 
Augustcc. This name, apparently that of the owner, 
was borne by many persons, and notably by Livia, the 
wife of Augustus, and M. Leon Eenier is convinced that 

' See No. 6 on plan. 



THE PALATINE. 105 

it is she who is in question.^ The house of the Palatine 
then, would be the one to which Livia retired on her 
husband's death. It is here, according to M. Eenier, 
that she passed in sadness and isolation the last years 
of her life, an object of hatred and jealousy to her son, 
who blushed to owe his greatness to her. On the other 
hand, to MM. Visconti and Lanciani, our little house 
appears to be the one spoken of by Josephus, by 
which the murderers escaped, so they do not hesitate to 
call it " the house of Germanicus." However it may be 
with regard to these two opinions, which it would not 
be impossible to reconcile, and of which the second 
perhaps results from a false popular designation, the 
house is certainly much older than the passage, various 
details of its construction showing that it dates from the 
end of the Eepublic or the first years of the Empire, 
It continued to exist amid all the changes undergone by 
the Palatine. More and more hidden and buried by 
the great palaces that were built round about it, it had 
the good fortune to survive them. All the lower storey 
is in perfect preservation. Around the atrium, reached 
by descending a few steps, are arranged four rooms, 
still covered by the finest paintings, and the most intact 
yet discovered in Eome. Along the cornices run 
elegant arabesques, garlands of leaves and flowers 
intertwined with winged genii, and fantastic landscapes 
in charming taste. In the middle of the panels are 

^ M. Renier maintained tliis opinion in a memoir published by the 
Revue Archeologiqtie in 1871, to which M. Georges Perrot has added 
an important study on the paintings of the Palatine since then. M. 
Perrot has reproduced the work of M. Renier and his own in his 
Memoires d'Archeologie. 



106 ARCHAEOLOGICAL PwAMBLES. 

seen five large frescoes forming distinct subjects. The 
two least important in size and merit are scenes of 
initiation and magic. Another, nearly 3 metres high, 
represents a street of Eome, supposed to be seen through 
a window. This was a manner of enlarging an apart- 
ment or enlivening it, and of giving the Roman houses 
those street views which they generally lack. The 
custom still exists in our time. "All who have 
travelled in Italy," says M. Perrot, " know what a taste 
the Italians have preserved for those ocular deceits, for 
those perspectives which their decorators employ with a 
rare ability. You enter a court, and on the wall at the 
back, instead of the dull grey colour of the dirty plaster, 
or the glaring whiteness of the whitewash, you perceive 
a street receding in the distance, bordered by fine 
buildings or a garden ; a coppice filled with birds flying 
about in the foliage ; a trellis with ripe grapes hanging 
from it. The eye, without being cheated, still feels a 
lively pleasure in this substitution, and the mind en- 
joys an illusion which may be more or less complete, 
according to the greater or lesser adroitness of the 
painter. From the artists who decorated the houses of 
the Campanian cities and of Imperial Rome, down to 
those in our days, who spread their distemper colours 
on the walls of the houses of Genoa, Milan, Padua, and 
Bologna, there is an unbroken tradition, a heritage 
faithfully passed on from century to century, through 
all political vicissitudes. The Palatine view represents 
a street, with houses on which at each storey there are 
seen, sometimes open terraces, and sometimes balconies, 
surmounted by a roof supported on columns, like a 
loggia of our days. Persons leaning at the windows 



THE PALATINE. 107 

look at the passers-by, and a woman has just come out 
of her door. As she is accompanied by a young girl 
who holds in her hand one of those dishes in which the 
sacred cakes were placed, it may be supposed that they 
are both going to make some offering in a neighbour- 
ing temple. It is therefore a real landscape, a corner 
of ancient Eome exactly reproduced, where we find 
what is wanting at Pompeii — many storied houses. 

The two other pictures are mythological. In one of 
them Polyphemus is seen pursuing Galatea. The giant 
is half plunged in the waves, and to indicate that he is 
dominated by his passion, the painter has represented 
behind him a little wingless Cupid, standing on his 
shoulder, and holding him in leash with two ribands. 
Galatea, fleeing on a hippocampus, looks back towards 
the Cyclops. Her right hand rests on the croup of the sea 
horse, while the left, embracing its neck, supports a red 
mantle which falls to below the loins. The red drapery 
and the black mane of the hippocampus throw the 
whiteness of the nymph's flesh into high relief. In the 
background an arm of the sea is perceived, shut in by 
high bluffs. The hills are covered with trees, the water 
has kept its transparency. " I remember no ancient 
landscape," says M. Perrot, " in which a more happy 
and broader interpretation of Nature is found." The 
other fresco, the finest of all as regards its execution, 
represents lo at the moment when Hermes is about to 
deliver her from Argus. There can be nothing more 
elegant and more graceful than the attitude of the dis- 
consolate maiden, with eyes turned skywards, and in 
the disorder of her grief scarce holding upon her breast 
a mantle on the point of escaping. Behind her, Hermes 



108 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

approaches in silence, hidden by a rock from the view 
of lo and her guard, while vigilant Argus takes not 
his eyes from his victim, and, all gathered together, 
seems ready to spring upon the dreaded liberator. 
" This picture," says one of the best judges of ancient 
painting. Professor Hellig, " reveals an extraordinarily 
skilful and sure hand. The outlines are very delicately 
graded and yet well defined. The colour scheme, 
pitched in relatively bright tones, produces an har- 
monious and eye-reposing expression. It would be 
difficult to find at Pompeii a figure equal to that of lo. 
On the Palatine the proportions are more slender and 
more delicate, the colouring more transparent, and softer, 
than with the Campanian painters. Must we explain 
this superior refinement of conception and execution 
by saying that the painters of Eome had many more 
opportunities of seeing and closely studying Greek 
originals than their brethren of the provinces ? Must 
we, above all, think of the influence which must have 
been exercised on Eoman artists by the realities that 
surrounded them, and by the elegance of the women of 
the world in the great city ? This I do not dare to 
decide." ' 

It seems very surprising that this elegant house, 
scarcely separated from the imperial palaces by 
passages and streets, should have been able to subsist 
without notable changes from the end of the Eepublic 

^ At the Paris Jilcole des ieaux arts, we have a very exact copy of 
these paintings, the work of M. Leyrand, an inmate of the Academic 
de France at Rome. These pictures are placed in the vestibule of the 
hall where public exhibitions take place, on the side towards the q%iai 
Malaquais. 



THE PALATINE. 109 

until the ruin of the Empire. Perhaps it was pro- 
tected by the memory of illustrious dwellers who 
inhabited it during its first years; perhaps, too, the 
Csesars who followed had a private reason for keeping- 
it and repairing it with such care.^ Whatever pleasure 
one may find in being an emperor or a king, there are 
moments when this enslaving vocation wearies, and one 
feels a want to descend a little from the heights. This 
official and public life would jade the most intrepid of 
the ambitious, were it not varied from time to time by 
a little solitude and shade. Louis XIV. himself, so 
made for this perpetual stage-playing, and accustomed 
to it from his youth, went to Marly, where etiquette was 
less strict, in order to escape from what Saint Simon 
calls " the mechanism of the court," and belong a little 
to himself. Who knows if this charming little house, 
so near the imperial palaces and yet so independent 
of them, where nothing recalls the supreme dignity, 
did not at times serve the princes, tried with the cares 
of Empire, as a retreat ? It was quite adapted to their 
relaxation ; it offered them a picture of private life, to 
which we always turn with some regret when we have 
left it. To my mind, setting aside the pleasure pro- 
duced by the beautiful paintings which cover the walls, 
the thought that princes like Vespasian or Titus, Trajan 
or Marcus Aurelius, often frequented it, passing pleasant 
hours there in sweet chats with their friends, augments 
the interest we feel in visiting it. 

Of Nero nothing remains on the Palatine. The taste 



1 The inscriptions on leaden pipes found there prove that it was 
repaired under Domitian and under Septimus Severus. 



110 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

for the gigantic being predouiinaut in him, his dream was 
to make a palace in which the whole town should be con- 
tained. The narrow hill, already covered with temples 
and houses that must be respected, afforded him no 
room for the edifices which he meditated, so he resolved 
to build his palace elsewhere. Caligula, in order to con- 
struct his, had already encroached upon the Forum. It 
occurred to Nero to equal the gardens of Maecenas 
across the broad plain separating the Palatine and the 
Coelian from the Esquiline. When the terrible ten days' 
conflagration had cleared the ground of the houses that 
encumbered it, Severus and Celer, Nero's architects, set 
to work. Their bold imagination, rich in unexpected 
combinations, was made to charm a prince whose 
morbid mind only loved new spectacles and extra- 
ordinary conceptions. They built him a palace such as 
had never been seen. The immense space at their 
disposal was filled with buildings of every kind. At 
the entry, near the spot where Hadrian afterwards 
raised the Temple of Eome, they placed a statue of the 
prince, a colossus 120 feet in height, which was 
subsequently made into an image of the sun. Towards 
the Esquiline, where the ground is so fertile, vast 
meadows, fields, and vineyards were spread out, and 
woods where wild animals roved. In the centre of the 
plain a pond was dug, which, according to Suetonius, 
was as large as a sea, and on whose shores rose pictur- 
esque buildings. As for the palace, properly so called, it 
was all resplendent with precious metals and rare stones 
encrusted in the walls ; so they named it the " Golden 
House." Immense porticoes were seen there ; ban- 
queting halls ^vith ivory tables ; water-jets pierced with 



THE PALATINE. Ill 

narrow holes, that spread upon the guests an impalpable 
rain of perfumes and precious spices ; and baths where, 
in the reservoirs, sea-water and all kinds of sulphurous 
waters were found in abundance. When Nero took 
possession of his new dwelling, he deigned to thank his 
architects, who had served him to his liking, and was 
heard to say that at length he was lodged. 



III. 

THE FLAVII AND THEIE POLICY — DESCEIPTION OF DOM- 
ITIAN'S palace — THE PALACE OF SEVERUS — THE 
IMPEEIAL BOX AT THE GEEAT CIECUS — LODGINGS 
OF THE SOLDIEES AND SEEVANTS. 

The dynasty of the Tlavii, who replaced the Ceesars, 
were bound to conduct themselves differently from 
them. Their ennoblement being recent and as yet 
unendowed with the authority that springs from ancient 
memories, it was necessary to base it upon public 
opinion, to listen to its complaints, and hold them in 
great account. Of all Nero's insensate undertakings, 
the building of the Golden House was perhaps that 
which had most irritated honest people. It recalled on e of 
the most terrible calamities of his reign, the burning of 
Kome, to which Nero was accused of having himself set 
fire, in order the more easily to obtain the ground he 
coveted. " The fire was scarcely extinguished," says an 
historian, "when he hastened to use the ruins of his 
country to build himself a rich palace. People were 
indignant to see those fields, those gardens, those 
meadows, which replaced so many poor houses, and, in 



112 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the midst of a town overflowing with inhabitants, all 
this immense space filled with a single dwelling." 
" Eome," it was said in malicious verses, " will soon be 
nothing but a palace. Prepare yourselves yet, oli 
citizens, to emiorate to Veii, unless Veii itself be 
included in the house of Caesar." ^ Moreover, this 
magnificence cost very dearly : the Emperor's architects 
did not calculate ; the treasury was always empty, and, 
in order to replenish it, recourse was had, as usual, to 
confiscations and assassinations, so that the Golden 
House seemed to recall all the crimes it had entailed- 
Not only did the new emperors take good care not to 
finish it — they destroyed it. The vast grounds which it 
occupied were in part restored to the public, and only 
that was kept which was necessary for the erection of 
some sumptuous monuments. On the site of Nero's 
ponds, the Flavian amphitheatre was built, now called 
the Colosseum. On the Esquiline the baths were begun, 
which afterwards took the name of Titus, and at the 
post of the Via Palatina, on the Sacred Way, an elegant 
arch of triumph recalled to mind the taking of Jerusa- 
lem. These monuments, by means of which the new 
dynasty endeavoured to make itself popular, had the 
advantage over those of Nero, that the people profited by 
them. "Eome," said a poet, "is put into possession of 
herself again, thanks to thee, Ceesar. That which was 
the pleasure of a single man, serves for the delight of 
all." 2 

So the Empire had returned to the Palatine, and 



1 Suetonius, Nero, 39. 
^MarHal, Dc Sped., 2-12. 



THE PALATINE. 113 

this time, to leave it no more. Vespasian and Titus 
practised the policy of Augustus, sparing no outlay 
for monuments destined for the public, while they 
themselves lived simply, rather like private persons than 
princes. They managed, it appears, with the old 
imperial palaces, which, since the fire, had been 
repaired ; but this simplicity was not to the taste 
of their successor, Domitian. He had the mania, or, 
as Plutarch expresses it, the malady of building. Few 
princes have raised such magnificent edifices, and we 
are told that his palace was the finest of all. A man 
who caused himself to be worshipped, and who ordered 
that in petitions to him he should be addressed as 
" Master and God," could only dwell in a " sanctuary," 
for thus he himself called his house, and willed that 
it should be called. It was natural that he should 
endeavour to make himself a dwelling which should be 
worthy of such a name. 

This palace, the admiration of contemporaries, has 
been completely brought to light by recent excavations. 
It is not quite a discovery, for towards the beginning 
of the last century, Francis I., Duke of Parma, who 
possessed this part of the hill, had it excavated by the 
learned Bianchini, when a considerable quantity of 
ruins were found, and it was agreed, without hesitation, 
that they must belong to the palace of Domitian. It 
was then in a much better condition than now, and 
several rooms had preserved important remains of their 
primitive decoration. After everything that could be 
carried off had been taken to adorn the museums of 
the Farnese family, the ruins were covered up again 
with earth, and remained so for a century and a half. 

H 



114 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Signor Eosa has given them back to us definitely ; and, 
as they have this time been more completely cleared 
and disencumbered, as the general plan of the edifice is 
easy to reconstruct, and as it seems better to correspond 
to the idea we form of a palace, it is also the spot on 
the Palatine which strangers prefer to visit, and of 
which they keep the best recollection.^ 

Domitian's palace is still a Eoman house, built on 
the same plan as the others — yet with the difference that 
its proportions are vaster. It is reached by the steep 
incline {Clivns Falatinus) which, as I have said, leaves 
the Sacred Way near the Arch of Titus, and served the 
Eomans as their usual entrance to the Palatine, from 
the time of Eomulus. At the end of this road was the 
principal facade of the palace. Under a magnificent 
portico, raised on columns whose shafts have been 
found, three doors opened. That in the middle gave 
access to one of the largest and boldest rooms known 
to us. It was doubtless the reception hall, and 
Signor Eosa has retained its ancient name of tablinum. 
In it the prince gave his audiences ; it is there that he 
received the ambassadors of kings or of foreign peoples, 
and the deputations from the provinces which, on every 
anniversary, came to bring him the felicitations and 
good wishes of his most distant subjects. This hall 
is a living witness to the progress made by monarchical 
usages since the time of Augustus. At its end, opposite 

^M. Ferdinand Dutert, who studied these ruins while in course of 
discovery, made a restoration essay, of which he published a summary 
in the Revue archeologique of January and February 1873. I am 
indebted to his kindness for a photographic proof of his restoration, 
which I reproduce iu the plate opposite this page. 




L TTiu. lier /W' 



THE PALATINE. 115 

the entrance door, is seen a niche, doubtless destined to 
contain the Emperor's throne — for Domitian^ac? athrone, 
and it was he who introduced into the imperial court the 
etiquette of Oriental monarchies. Statins, his favourite 
poet, openly gave him the name of king, which Csesar 
had not dared to take, and he well knew that in apply- 
ing it to him, he did not risk his displeasure. The 
decoration of the hall was in keeping with its extent. 
Bianchini relates that, when he discovered it, he found 
admirable remains of its ancient splendour. Around 
walls, covered with the most precious marbles, rose 
sixteen Corinthian columns, twenty-eight feet in height, 
and marvellously worked. Eight large niches, sur- 
mounted by four pediments, like those of the Pantheon 
of Agrippa, contained eight colossal statues in basalt, 
two of which, a Bacchus and a Hercules, were found in 
their places. The entrance door was flanked by two 
columns of giallo antico, which were sold for 2000 
sequins (£925). The threshold was formed of such an 
enormous piece of Greek marble that it was converted 
into the table of the high altar of a church. All these 
riches have been dispersed ; along the walls and on the 
pavements, there remain but a few fragments of the 
marble which covered them, and these relics no longer 
suffice to give us an idea of what must have been the 
magnificence of the hall. 

The tailiniun is placed between two other rooms 
of unequal size, opening, like itself, upon the entrance 
portico. The smaller of these was thought to be one 
of those household chapels where the divinities of the 
family were worshipped, and it has been named the 
Lararium, but whether this was its destination is 



116 AKCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

somewhat uncertain. With regard to the other, 
however, there can be no doubt. It was a basilica, 
that is to say, one of those halls in which justice was 
administered. All its parts are clearly distinguished, 
and near the semicircular niche where the judges 
sat, there even remains a fragment of the balustrade 
which separated them from the bystanders. Here it 
was that the emperor judged the civil or criminal 
causes that were submitted to him. Domitian was 
very tenacious of this prerogative of his supreme 
power. He desired to assume the reputation of being 
a severe judge, and pitilessly chastised in others all 
the faults he so easily pardoned in himself. 

Behind these three halls, which take up the front 
of the palace, is the peristyle, a vast court of more 
than 3000 square metres in extent, surrounded by 
porticoes.^ The remains of the fluted columns of 
Carian marble, which supported the roof, and the slabs 
of Numidian marble which covered the walls, are 
still seen. At the end of the peristyle, facing the 
tablinum, a wide door leads to the triclinium, or 
refectory of the palace. Martial tells us that, before 
Domitian's time, the Palatine had no triclinium worthy 
of the Caesars, and congratulates him. on having built 
one, which to the poet appears as beautiful as the 
banqueting hall of Olympus. He declares "that the 
gods might drink nectar there, and receive from the 
hands of Ganymede the sacred cup." This comparison 
is bold, yet it must be owned that the hall must have 



1 It was not possible to clear it all. A strip of ground imbedded 
under the terraces of the Villa Mills yet remains. 



THE PALATINE. 117 

been very fine when it was intact. According to 
Eoman usage, it contained three tables. Two of these 
were ranged along the lateral walls, and the chief 
one was placed opposite the door of entry, in a kind 
of niche, magnificently decorated, which still preserves a 
portion of its pavement of porphyry, serpentine, and 
giallo antico. This was the one where sat the emperor 
and the greatest personages. The middle remained free 
for the service. On each side, five large windows, 
separated by columns of red granite, opened on two 
nym'p'hcea, in the middle of which the remains of a marble 
basin are still found, ornamented with little niches 
which must have contained statues. From the couches 
on which the guests reclined for the repast, they 
could see the water gushing from the fountain, and 
falling in a cascade from step to step in the midst 
of verdure, marble, and flowers. This elegant dining- 
room is often mentioned by the writers of the time. 
Domitian, who piqued himself on a love for letters, 
and who, in his youth, had written verses which his 
flatterers found divine, sometimes deigned to invite 
poets to his table. Statins, who obtained this envied 
honour, has described his joy to us in one of his Silves. 
It is a veritable delirium. He declares that on 
entering the Emperor's triclinium, he thought himself 
transported into the midst of the stars, and that he 
seemed to take his place at the table of Jupiter 
himself. " Is it indeed you whom I see," he says to 
the prince, "you, the vanquisher and father of the 
world subdued; you, the hope of men, and the care 
of the gods ? So I am near you ! In the midst of 
the goblets and the viands which cover the table, I 



118 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

contemplate your countenance." And lie hastens to 
add : " I own that all the sumptuous appurtenances 
of the repast, these tables of oak supported on ivory 
columns, this army of slaves, allure not my looks. It 
is the Emperor alone I wished to see, and him alone 
I contemplate. I could not take my eyes from that 
calm countenance, which seemed to wish to temper 
the brilliancy of his fortune in an air of serene 
majesty. But he could not hide his greatness ; it shone 
in spite of him, upon his features. On seeing him, 
the most distant nations, the most barbarous hordes, 
would have recognised their master." ^ These com- 
pliments appear rather strong when we consider that 
Domitian was in question, but the honour which the 
prince had done Statins was of those which turned the 
heads of poets. Martial declares that if Jupiter and 
Domitian were to invite him to dinner on the same 
day, he would leave the master of the gods, and go to 
the Emperor. 

Of all these great halls we have now only marble 
pavements, bases of columns, and a few fragments of 
wall ; the rest is destroyed. But the testimony of 
contemporary authors is sufficient to give us an idea of 
what we have lost. They are unanimous in celebrat- 
ing the vast proportions of the edifice and describing 
its height. They say, in their hyperbolical language, 
" that in beholding it, one would think to see Pelion on 
Ossa ; that its roofs pierce the ether and see Olympus 
more closely ; that, from below, the eyes can hardly 
distinguish the roof, and that the golden pinnacle 



iStatius, Silv., IV. 2. 



THE PALATINE. Il9 

confounds itself with the beaming brightness of the skies." 
They tell us of that infinite number of columns " that 
might uphold the celestial vault while Atlas reposes for 
a moment ; " they enumerate the marbles of all kinds 
that entered into the decoration of the walls, and they 
even persist with so much complaisance in these 
pompous descriptions that, against their intention, the 
thought occurs to us that there must be something 
of profusion and excess in all these ornaments. 
Simplicity was no longer loved in Domitian's time. 
The public taste and artistic talent had become less 
sure. Men no longer knew how to make beautiful, and 
sought to make rich. This is usual with all decadent 
arts. The prince, especially, was a passionate lover 
of this licentious magnificence, and a joker compared 
him to King Midas, who turned all he touched into 
gold.i 

This immense palace contains many other rooms less 
important than those we have just described, but all 
the apartments necessary to private life have not 
been discovered. So it only served for official repre- 
sentations, and in reality the princes lived elsewhere. 

^ In several MSS. of the Middle Ages, the description of a palace is 
found, in which Signer Kosa has recognised the palace of Domitian 
(Piante di Roma, p. 123). This curious fragment shows, first of all, 
that the names given to the various rooms composing the palace are 
exact. They are found again in the Middle Age description. The 
reception hall is called salutatorium ; it has beside it the consistoHum, 
that is to say, the basilica, and further on the trichorum, or three- 
bedded dining-room {triclinium). It then shows that this beautiful 
palace subsisted until after the ruin of the Empire ; that it was always 
the centre of the Palatine, and that it continued in the imagination 
of all as the type of an imperial palace. 



120 ARCH^OLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

Their true dwelling seems at all times to have been 
either the house of Augustus or that of Tiberius. In 
order to be able to pass from the latter to Domitian's 
palace without traversing the street, a subterranean 
gallery had been excavated, which still exists, com- 
municating with the cryptoporticus of which I have 
spoken.^ Thus the life of the emperors was, so to say, 
divided into two parts. The first, and doubtless the 
less agreeable portion, they spent in this magnificent 
palace, on whose door the emperor had inscribed 
Aedes puUicce, in order to make it understood that 
everybody had the right to come there and demand 
justice ; the rest of their time they had lived in an abode 
less sumptuous, but more retired, more convenient, 
more fitted for family life, where, after having accom- 
plished their business as emperors, they could, to use 
Antonine's fine expression, " enjoy the pleasure of being 
men." 

The Caesars had been living for a century — the best 
century of the Empire — in the old palaces, when it 
occurred to Septimus Severus to build a new one. 
Perhaps the opportunity was afforded him by the 
terrible fire which devastated the Palatine at the end 
of the reign of Commodus ; but he certainly had 
another reason for doing it. New dynasties always 
feel the need of striking the imagination of nations 
by some great enterprise. This one, especially, which 
followed the Antonines, and which had to earn 
forgiveness for its foreign origin, affected to concern 
itself greatly with Eome, its adornment and embel- 

1 See No, 7 on the general plan of the Palatine. 



THE PALATINE. 121 

lishment. Severus, like all who suddenly attain to high 

fortune, was always in fear lest his former situation 

should be recollected, and wished to obliterate its 

memory. It is related that when he returned to his 

country invested with a public function, one of his old / 

friends, happy to see him, having embraced him, he had 

him beaten with rods, in order to teach him to treat 

a magistrate of the Eoman people more ceremoniously. 

It doubtless appeared to him that, in rivalling his 

predecessors in magnificence, he showed himself worthy 

to succeed them. He desired to take possession of the 

imperial hill, by building there a palace which should 

bear his family name. 

The Palatine was beginning to be encumbered, and 
room for new constructions must have become scarce. 
Yet a space still remained free opposite the Coelian, 
along the Triumphal Way. It bad been less built 
upon than elsewhere, because it descends towards the 
plain by gentle slopes, and does not afford level 
ground on which a vast edifice could be erected. Yet 
Domitian's palace had somehow or other extended 
thither. From that peristyle of which I have spoken, 
and which covered so large a space, a series of rooms, 
still but little known, communicated with the house of 
Augustus, which Domitian had thus included in his 
vast palace. Beyond the house of Augustus he had 
constructed a stadmm, now entirely cleared. By the 
word stadium, was designated a kind of circus destined 
for foot races or athletic games. This was one of 
the favourite amusements of the Greeks. Nothing 
pleased that nation of artists more than to see a 
fine body display in varied exercises its strength 



122 ARCHAEOLOGICAL tlAMBLES. 

and grace. The Eomans, who were only struck by 
the indecency and danger of these exercises, did not 
like them. They imbibed a taste for them, however, 
under the Empire, and it was Domitian, especially, 
who worked their acceptance. He constructed for 
these games a large circus in the Field of Mars, of 
which the Piazza Navona still preserves the form and 
plan. He liked to preside at them, clad in a Greek 
costume, his shoulders covered with a purple mantle, 
and a crown of gold upon his head. It is not 
surprising then that he should have chosen to have 
in his palace a stadium where he could give for 
himself and his friends alone the entertainment which 
in the Field of Mars he shared with all the Eomans. 
He doubtless liked to try, in the company of a few 
connoisseurs, the rapid runner or the skilful athlete 
whom he was afterwards to show to the people. The 
place where he gave these entertainments must have 
been very elegant ; ^ the imperial hemicycle has been 
found, composed of two rooms, one above the other, 
of which the highest seems also to have been the most 
beautiful.^ All around the circus were two tiers of 
porticoes supported on marble columns. The aspect 
which the place presented when the Emperor was 
seated in his box, and the courtiers, liappy to take 
their part in these imperial distractions, crowded 
beneath the porticoes, may be imagined. 

1 In the library of the Ecolc dcs beaux arts there is a very 
interesting restoration essay of Domitian's stadium {Essai de restaura- 
Hon du stade de Domitian) by M. Pascal, late inmate of the Academie 
dc France, at Rome. 

2 See No. 8 on plan. 



THE PALATINE. 123 

It was beyond Uomitian's stadium, at the very angle 
of the hill, towards the east and south, that Severus 
built his palace. The expense of it must have been 
very considerable. Before constructing the palace itself, 
it was necessary, so to speak, to make the foundation on 
which it was to rise. We saw just now that the ground 
slopes gently downward towards the plain. They raised 
it by means of immense substructions, consisting of stone 
arcades superposed. These substructions still exist. 
The earth that covered them having disappeared, the 
arcades are seen on all sides, mounting one above the 
other, and forming strange groups. They are so high, 
and strike with such astonishment him who beholds 
them from the neighbouring roads, that people some- 
times do them the honour to take them for the palace 
of the emperor itself. They are only its foundations 
and underground supports, however ; the palace of 
Severus was built above them. A few still solid walls 
yet remain of it, the highest and best preserved found 
on the Palatine. One of them supported a magnificent 
staircase leading to the upper stories. But of all these 
imposing ruins, nothing equals in interest what remains 
of the imperial box on the Great Circus.'^ It was con- 
tiguous to the palace itself, so that the Emperor might be 
present at the chariot and horse races without leaving 
home. It consisted of a closed room, in which the Emperor 
and his family could take a little rest, and of a terrace 
whence the eye embraced the entire circus. The view 
enjoyed from it on a day when one of those great 
festivals was held, which brought together all the 

^ See No. 9 on the plan. 



V2i ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Roman people, imust have been admirablo. The long 
and close valley, extending between the Palatine and 
the Avoiitin(>, is to-day one of the saddest and poorest 
quarters of llonie. It was then an immense hippo- 
drome, adorned with oolumiis, ttbelisks, and statues, 
and surromided by rows of niiirblc seats, on which, 
(hiring tlie public games, nearly 400,000 spectators 
crowded. Nothing could equal the animation of this 
crowd when horses or charioteers beloved of the public 
were to run, " Tlie spectators," says Lactantius, " formed 
the strangest of spectacles. They were seen to follow 
with passion all the incidents of the race, to gesticulate, 
to cry, to howl, to jump upon their seats. Each of 
them took the i)art of one of the diCferent fiu'tions. They 
insulted, they applauded the drivers, clad in green or 
blue, white or red, who turned about the sphia. From 
the moment when the magistrate who presided at the 
festival gave the signal for starting by throwing a white 
handkerchief into the arena, to that when the nuxst 
fortunate chariot, after traversing a distance of seven 
kilometres and a half, touched the goal, a terrible noise 
which is said to have been heard at several leagues 
from Home, arose from all these spectators. The 
Emperors shared the general excitement. They also had 
their favourite horses and charioteers, and did not 
willingly accept their defeat. I imagine that it 
was here in this imjierial box, which a kind fate has 
preserved for us, that the strange scene took place 
related by Herodotus. Some of the spei'tators having 
ventured to hiss a driver of the blue faction, favoured 
by Caracalla, he ordered his guards to punish the cul- 
prits. The soldiers threw themselves on the seats 



THE PALATINE. 125 

of the circus, and to save themselves the trouble of 
picking out the offenders, slew all whom they could 
reach. It was an indescribable scene of confusion and 
slaughter, at wliich the Emperor, who saw everything 
from his box, must have been much edified.^ 

Septimus Severus is tlie last of the emperors who 
had a new dwelling built. After him the Empire 
became too wretched for a prince to be able to allow 
himself such a luxury. I have therefore finished 
enumerating the palaces that were built on the Palatine ; 
but it contained other edifices besides the dwellings of 
the emperors. Near the prince his guards and his 
servants had to be lodged. Although these houses of 
soldiers and slaves were necessarily constructed with 
less care and at less cost, traces of them, nevertheless, 

^ Another part of the palace of Severus continued very famous. At 
the bottom of the hill, facing the Coelian, he caused to be built along 
the Triumphal Way a three-storied portico, named the Septizonium. 
He desired to make it the chief entrance to the palace, but the 
Proefect of Rome, who was doubtless tenacious of ancient customs, 
prevented him, by causing the statue of the emperor to be placed at 
the spot where the door should have been. The Septizonium, there- 
fore, was no longer anything but a magnificent monument, serving 
no purpose. The malicious who saw it placed opposite the road 
from Africa, pretended that Severus, in constructing it, had wished 
to strike his countrymen with admiration on tlieir arrival. The 
Septizonium had the good fortune to pass through the whole of 
the Middle Ages without much accident. It was still nearly intact 
when it pleased Sixtus V. to destroy it and use the columns for some 
church he was restoring. "The Renaissance of the Arts," says M. 
Dutert, " was the signal for the mutilation and dispersion of the 
finest artistic works." The Popes often destroyed ancient monuments 
which tlie Ostrogoths had repaired. Was it not Paul V. who destroyed 
the admirable remains of the Temple of Pallas, in the Forum of Nerva, 
in order to decorate the PauUne fountain ? Fiu Goto de'Ooti I 



126 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

remain on different portions of the hill. At the bottom 
of the Palatine road, near the Arch of Titus, the excava- 
tions brought to light a great number of rooms of 
unequal size.^ Signor Rosa supposes that they were 
occupied by the Praetorian cohort which guarded the 
Caesars, and it is indeed very natural to believe that the 
barracks were placed beside the principal entrance to 
the Palatine. It is hither, then, according to Tacitus, 
that the unfortunate Piso, just adopted by Galba, came 
at the first news of Otho's revolt, assembled the soldiers 
of the guard, and made them that honest, sad speech 
which was not destined to win the hearts of the Praetor- 
ians. But more curious than these formless ruins, whose 
destination, on the whole, is somewhat doubtful, are 
those found at the opposite extremity, towards the 
Velabrum. A road has been discovered there, almost 
entire, and pretty well preserved, in which what was 
called the Ascent of Victory (Clivus Victoria^ is thought 
to have been discovered." ^ It is another relic of Rome of 
the earliest times. It was entered by the " Roman Gate," 
one of those whose origin was said to go back to 
Romulus. Thence a narrow steep way went towards 
the top of the hill. The road, bordered on each side by 
high houses, could never have been very light, but it 
must have been darker still after Caligula had it partly 
covered, in order to extend his terraces. The right 
side of this road, that supported by the hill, certainly 
belonged to the dependencies of the imperial palaces. 

1 See No. 10 on the plan. The ruins discovered on this spot seem to 
be of a very low epoch. MM. Visconti and Lanciani are tempted to 
believe that they belong to constructions of the Emperor Maximiau. 

" See No. 11 ou the plan. 



THE PALATINE. 127 

On entering the half-fiUed-up chambers which still 
exist, when the eye begins to get accustomed to the 
darkness, one is surprised to see that these sombre 
apartments, which at first seemed scarcely suitable even 
for slaves, are sometimes decorated with great elegance. 
Many have preserved their stuccos and mosaics ; there are 
some whose walls are still decked with graceful paint- 
ings, and one of the balconies has kept its fine marble 
balustrade. If these houses, as it is natural to believe, 
were inhabited by the prince's servants, they must have 
been reserved for the most distinguished slaves and 
freedmen — for the aristocracy of the imperial domestics. 
There were doubtless among these people without country 
and without name, bought in the markets of Greece, 
some whose good graces were sought by the greatest 
lords, who dominated the Emperor, and who often 
governed the Empire. When they became important 
and rich, they submitted to live in these apartments 
without air and without light, in order not to be far from 
their master, as under Louis XIV., the most illustrious 
personages, possessors of great hotels and fine chateaux, 
crowded themselves into the tainted apartments of 
Versailles for the sake of always being before the eyes 
of the king. But if those slaves and freedmen felt 
themselves obliged to inhabit these dark chambers, 
they desired, as far as in them lay, to make them worthy 
to receive them. Such at least is the only way of 
explaining this luxury of paintings and marble, and this 
fine ornamentation lavished upon walls where they 
could scarcely be seen. 

On the other side of the Palatine, near the Great 
Circus, one of those ancient houses has been found, 



128 AllCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

which were preserved after the hill had been invaded 
by imperial palaces, and were devoted to the housing of 
the attendants.^ It perhaps contained soldiers and 
slaves at difterent periods. The rooms around the 
atrium are full of those inscriptions, scratched or 
scribbled with charcoal, called by the Italians graffiti. 
They are for the most part the work of soldiers calling 
themselves veterans of the Emperor (vctcranns domini 
nostri), and some are smart epigrams, in which the 
veteran complains of the small protit he has derived 
from his service.- There are others which seem to 
prove that at a certain epoch the school for young slaves 
(pa-daifogium) was established in this house, where were 
educated the children destined to serve the prince, to 
approach him, to bear him company, and cheer him with 
their conversation. Several of these children have left 
upon the walls inscriptions which seem to prove that 
the school did not greatly amuse them, and that they 
were glad to leave it. Here also was found the famous 
caricature, now in the Kirolier Museum, of which so 
much has been said. It represents a man with an ass's 
head stretched upon a cross. Below, a parson, roughly 
drawn, raises his hand to his mouth and gazes upon the 
crucified one. The scene is explained by a Greek 
inscription, in which we read the following words : 
" Alexamenus adores his cod." This is evidentlv a 



' See No. 12 on the plan. 

- On the wall of one of these chambers wns seen a little .ass tnrning 
the wheel of a mill. Below it was written the following legend : — 
"Work, little ass, as I myself have worked, "twill do thee good" 
{Laboru txscllf, ijuomodo ftjo lahoravi et proderit iihi). This charming 
little drawing was recently destroyed by a storm. 



THE PALATINE. 129 

pleasantry directed against a Christian. In the time of 
the Antonines it was believed, even in the most en- 
lightened society, that both the Christians and the Jews 
worshipped an ass. A soldier or a slave of the Emperor 
Alexamenus, having embraced the new doctrine, was 
the object of his comrades' railleries, but he bore them 
with courage, and in the midst of this hostile world he 
did not deny his faith. In 1870 M. Visconti found 
an inscription, in which he makes profession of it in the 
following words, probably graven by himself : 
ALEXAMENOS FIDELIS. 

Although Christianity early made its way into the 
house of the Caesars, this is the only memento of it 
remaining on the Palatine. 



IV. 

ASPECT OF THE HILL IN THE THIRD CENTURY — IT CON- 
TAINS THE EDIFICES OF ALL TIMES — MONUMENTS 
OF THE IMPERIAL EPOCH — DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 
THE PALACES OF THEN AND NOW — BEAUTY OF THE 
WHOLE. 

However lengthy this study already, I think it useful 
to add to it yet a few more words. After having enum- 
erated in detail the edifices which each century saw 
rise upon the Palatine, we must endeavour to form an 
idea of the effect that must have been produced by the 
whole. Let us then suppose ourselves in the third 
century, about the time when Septimus Severus had 
just built the last of all the imperial palaces, and let us 
imagine that in one of those moments, becoming more 

X 



130 AECHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

and more infrequent, when the Empire is calm and 
victorious, we pay a visit to the celebrated hill. At 
this moment it all belongs to the Ciesars; and their 
family, their soldiers, and their servants alone occupy it. 
It contains buildings of different ages, of which some 
go back to the very origin of Rome, but which are all 
kept up and repaired with the greatest care. No ruins 
sadden the eye ; the Cresars will suffer none anywhere. 
Nothing in their Empire must have an air of poverty 
and desolation to belie the prosperity of their rule. Is 
it not known that one of them went so far as to uncere- 
moniously abolish the companies that had been formed 
to purchase the great domains, and which, after drawing a 
good profit from the lands by cutting them up, did not take 
the pains to keep the houses in order when they could 
not find buyers for them ? The Emperor is indignant 
at this conduct, declaring in his edict that " this is 
a murderous commerce, inimical to the world's peace," 
and which insults the public happiness ; that, instead of 
covering the fields with ruins, it behoves so fortunate an 
age to build new houses, in order to make the happi- 
ness of the human race the more shine forth." ^ Of 
course these maxims were to be practised on the Pala- 
tine more than elsewhere. It was fitting that all 
should be maintained in good order around the imperial 
palaces ; so, in spite of the miseries of the Empire, 
nothing there was allowed to fall into ruin, and this is 
what explains how the most decayed old houses were 
preserved into the coming of the barbarians. 

^This curious edict against "rings" among the Romans wcs 
published and commented on by M. Egger, in the Mcmoircsdi laSociiti 
dcs antiquaircs dc Frawe, 4th Series, Vol, III, 



THE PALATINE. 131. 

So there were monuments of all ages upon the 
Palatine, and the great interest offered to a visitor 
was that within a restricted space it contained, as it 
were, the entire history of Eome. From the time 
" when the oxen of the Arcadian Evander came to 
repose there," down to that when the African and 
Oriental dynasty of Severus settled upon it, each 
century had left some memento. It held the dwelling 
of the first king and the palace of the first emperor ; 
the spot was shown upon it, where lived the great 
consuls of the Kepublic, and the best of the princes. 
All the transformations of the national worship could 
be followed : the Temple of Jupiter Stator, that of 
Apollo, and that of the mother of the gods successively 
recalled the epochs when liome was content with the 
divinities of Latium, when she admitted the gods of 
Greece, and, finally, when she sought the exalted 
creeds of the East, and prepared the way for 
Christianity. People came to visit all these move- 
ments, and the most ancient, although the most 
simple, were not made the least of. The Eomans 
were not like those parvenues who blush at the 
humbleness of their origin, and seek to hide it. They 
found in it, on the contrary, a cause for pride, because 
it enabled them the better to measure the greatness 
of the way they had traversed. No period of their 
history was excluded from their gratitude ; they knew 
tliat all the ages had worked for the glory of Rome ; 
neither X-""-'lit,ical hatreds nor party prejudices had 
power to make them unjust towards any one : however 
ardent disputes had been, time had appeased all, and 
nothing remained of the past but the ever-living 



i 



132 ARCH-^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

memory of services rendered to the country. The 
patriotism of a Eoman of the third century was 
composed of an equal admiration for the heroes of 
the Eepublic and for the great emperors, and he 
visited with the same feelings of respect and pride 
the cabin of Eomulus, the house of Cicero, and the 
palace of Augustus. 

That, however, which predominated, that which had 
left the most mementoes on the Palatine, was the 
imperial epoch. It is not quite exact to pretend, 
in accordance with the inscription of the Farnese 
Gardens, that it contained the palace of the Caesars 
{Palazzo de Cesari), which would lead one to believe 
that only one vast habitation existed there, unceas- 
ingly enlarged and embellished like the Tuileries by 
the new Emperors who came to inhabit it.^ It was 
rather the palatial quarter. There were five different 
quarters which bore the names of the princes who had 
them built.- Nothing like it is seen in our modern 
capitals. In our days, when princes, from caprice 
or from vanity, chose to construct a new dwelling, 
it is always very far from the old one. Their desire 
is to change, and what they first seek are a different 
situation and new points of view. The two chief 
residences of the Popes, the Vatican and the Quirinal, 

1 In Bianchini's time, it was believed. The restoration of the 
imperial palace, as he imagines it, should be seen in his work, entitled 
Palazzo da' Cesari. It is an immense construction, externally some- 
what like the Farnese Palace, where all is in keeping, and seems to be 
of the same time. Nothing less resembles the idea we now form of 
the Palatine. 

- At least, that of Tiberius seems always to have kept its name. See 
.Aulu Gelle, XIII. 19, and Hist. Aug. Frob., 2. 



l-HE PALATINE. 133 

are placed at the two extremities of Eome. Here, on 
the contrary, all is gathered upon the same hill. It 
had become the home of the Empire, and it seemed 
as though a prince could not reside elsewhere. Dion 
says that the places where the Emperors sojourned 
during their travels took the name of Palatine.^ 

This accumulation of palaces must have greatly im- 
pressed visitors. Let us imagine an intelligent and 
curious provincial, of whom in those times there were 
many — a Gaul, a Spaniard, an African — who came to see 
this Eome, of which all the world was talking. Even 
after the imperial Forums had been traversed, and 
the marvels of the Capitol admired, the Palatine was 
still fraught with things to excite his wonder. "We can 
easily imagine the spectacle which met his eyes ; for 
the excavations made of late years allow us to recon- 
struct the typography of the hill exactly. On arriving 
by that Climis Falatinus, of which I have so often 
spoken, and passing under the old Gate of Eomulus, 
near the Temple of Jupiter Stator, he had before him 
the facade of Domitian's palace. This palace, which 
first met his eyes, was also the most important of 
all, and that which seemed most in keeping with the 
majesty of the Csesars. A space, believed to be the 
Area Palatina, situated to the right, divided the imperial 
palaces into two distinct groups. One of these groups 
included the houses of Tiberius aud of Caligula, built 
to the north of the hill, along the Velabrum and the 
Forum, while the other group was composed of three 
different palaces, having their own facades, entrances, 

1 Dion, LIII. 1, 16. 



134 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

and peculiar characteristics, which could communicate 
with each other, and, on certain solemn occasions, form 
a single palace. That of Domitian adjoined the house 
of Augustus, more retired towards the south, and 
occupying nearly the centre of the hill. In the same 
line, a little further on, was the palace of Severus, 
situated towards the southern angle of the Palatine. 
The remaining buildings, exclusive of temples and 
historical edifices, served for the housing of the 
Emperor's slaves and freedmen. 

I am somewhat tempted to believe that if we could 
see the Palatine as it was in the third century, we 
should, although much admiring it, still make a few 
reservations. Our taste has acquired certain habits, 
and has assumed certain requirements that would not 
be entirely satisfied. The approaches to and environs of 
the imperial palaces would probably seem mean to 
us. The Clivus Palatinus is not broad, the Clivus 
Vidorice is still more narrow, and the Area Palatina 
does not appear sufficiently vast. If Domitian's palace 
was as elevated as Statins pretends, we really scarcely 
know where we could place ourselves, in order to take 
in all its height. Inside, these magnificent dwellings 
would please us more. The halls, the courts, the 
porticoes, would excite our admiration. Yet I think 
we should be very much surprised not to find any 
gardens to them. When the Emperors wished to taste 
the pleasures of the fields, they went outside Eome. 
Quite close, on the Alban lake, and at Tibur, they 
possessed charming villas, which it was easy for them 
to visit when they chose. If they wished to enjoy the 
real country — the country rough and unadorned {rus 



THE PALATINE. 135 

verum harharumque) — they went further. We know how 
happy Antonius was to gather the vintages of his great 
Latin domains. This sufficed them, and they seem 
never to have planted on the Palatine those luxurious 
gardens with which the rich of our days love to 
surround their houses.^ Nero alone anticipated our 
tastes, but perhaps less from love of the fields than in 
order to give himself "the proud pleasure of forcing 
nature." It doubtless appeared to him extraordinary 
and well worthy of a Caesar to bring woods into the 
midst of Eome and possess a pond of salt water ten 
leagues from the sea. These reservations made, we 
should, I think, be as much struck as the Romans by 
the beauty of the edifices built upon the Palatine. 
Although dating from different epochs, they could 
not have presented diversities offensive to a 
fastidious age. Fire — that chronic scourge of ancient 
Eome — had often overtaken them. Each time they 
were promptly rebuilt, for Eome, as Martial expressed 
it, was a Phoenix which grew younger by burning, and 
when they were raised again they were always har- 
monised a little with the fashion of the day. Thus 
inconsistencies, which might have shocked, had been 
effaced, and yet enough difference remained to attract 
by contrast the attention of visitors. Each of the 

^Yet mention is made of the gardens of Adonis (Adonea) in 
Domitian's palace, but these must have been of very slight extent. 
By the word Adonea, the Syrians and Egyptians rather understood 
gardenets than real gardens. They were earthen vases in which, 
at the time of the feast of Adonis, plants were sown that grow and die 
in a few days. This hasty and brief vegetation was an image of the 
destiny of the hero whose premature death was celebrated. 



136 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

palaces had its peculiar character and merits. That of 
Augustus must have been more simple and of a graver 
taste ; that of Domitian sumptuous to profusion ; that 
of Severus imbued with that relish for grandeur found 
again in the Baths of Caracalla. The interior of the 
apartments was adorned with incomparable magni- 
ficence, and their halls and porticoes resembled veritable 
museums, where the masterpieces of all ages had been 
gathered. Pliny already said that in his time the 
works of the most distinguished artists of Greece were 
seen there, and the Emperors who followed, especially 
Hadrian, that refined connoisseur and passionate lover 
of the Arts, must have enormously enriched the col- 
lection. In order that nothing might be wanting, rare 
and precious books had also been collected in abun- 
dance. The two libraries, Latin and Greek, of the 
portico of Apollo and of the house of Tiberius, were 
world-renowned. 

Let us finally add that the situation of the imperial 
palaces was in keeping with their beauty. Cicero says 
that the Palatine was the finest spot in Eome. Thence 
one commanded the whole town, and the eye embraced 
nearly all the famous monuments with which the 
Republic and the Empire had adorned it. " What more 
noble abode," says Claudian, " could the world's masters 
choose ? On this hill power is more majestic, and 
seems more conscious of its might. Here the palaces of 
the monarchs, raising their proud heads above the 
Forum, see at their feet the temples of the gods ranged 
round them in a circle, like outposts to protect them. 
Sublime sight ! Thence the eye perceives above the 
altars of thunderius Jove the ciaiits hancius on the 



THE PALATINE. 137 

Tarpeian Eock, the chiselled gold of the doors of the 
Capitol, and on the pinnacles of the temples, which on all 
sides usurp the realms of the air, those statues which seem 
to move in the clouds. Further on are rostral columns 
covered with the brass of ships, those edifices built on the 
top of the highest hills, audacious works which the hand 
of man adds to the work of nature, and those innumerable 
triumphal arches, fraught with the spoils of nations. 
Everywhere the splendour of gold smites on the dazzled 
sight, and by its ceaseless gleaming tires the trembling 
eyeballs." ^ All these riches have passed away. Nothing 
but their foundation remains of those marble palaces, 
from whose height the poet viewed the gold-encrusted 
buildings of the Forum. To-day they are only 
ruins, from which the eye looks forth on other ruins. 
But if we feel it difficult to imagine what they must 
have been when entire, let us remember that those who 
visited them in the last years of the Western Empire 
were unable to believe that magnificence could go 
further, and that they seemed to them the ideal of a 
regal habitation. From the third century, the word 
•palace, derived from the name of the Palatine, designates 
in Latin and Greek the abode of a monarch. Thence it 
passed into modern language, like that of Caesar, which 
the barbarians piously gathered up at the very moment 
when they were destroying the Empire, in order to 
make it the finest title that could be given to supreme 
power. 

^ Claudiau, in scxL eons. Honorii, 35. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE CATACOMBS. 

The discoveries made for thirty years past in the Cata- 
combs 1 present two remarkable peculiarities. First of 
all, they are the work of a single man, and it may be 
said that Signor J. B. Eossi shares their glory with no 
one ; and then they have this characteristic — that 
chance has nothing to do with them, that they are the 
reward of a confident science which proceeds with order, 
and in accordance with fixed and certain rules. Signor 
Eossi never works at random. He knows what he is 
doing and whither he is going, and always announces 
in advance what he is about to find. Nothing shows 
better than the brilliant success of his excavations the 
advantage of a good method to works of this kind. 

The Catacombs, which had not been visited since the 
ninth century, and whose memory was almost lost, ^ 

^ I call these monuments Catacombs, merely in order to conform to 
custom. In fact, only those of St Sebastian are so termed. The only 
name suited to them is that of cemeteries, and it is seen from a passage 
of Eusebius {Hist, eccles., VII. 11) that the name catacomb was 
reserved for Christian burial-places. 

2 Signor Rossi found, however, in the Catacombs of St Calixtus, the 
names of Pomporius Lseto and other scholars of the fifteenth 
century, who style themselves antiquitatis pcrscrutatores et amatores. 



140 ARCHiEOLOGTCAL E AMBLES. 

were found again by chance in 1578. Some years later, 
Bosio, an illustrious savant, undertook to study them, 
and having a clear-sighted, accurate mind, he at once 
found the means to render this study fruitful. He 
began by making himself familiar with the whole of 
Christian antiquity, so that, thanks to his immense 
reading, he was enabled to approach the Catacombs 
furnished with documents that would enable him to 
understand them. He purposed to explore them one 
after the other, to follow each regularly through the 
labyrinth of its galleries, and endeavour to find its name 
again and remake its history. Such a work demanded 
infinite erudition, a profound knowledge of the ecclesias- 
tical authors, and marvellous efforts of sagacity. Bosio 
was doubtless equal to it; his successors seemed 
terrified at the task, and abandoned it. They neglected 
more and more to busy themselves with the Catacombs 
themselves, in order to concentrate their attention on 
the monuments that were discovered there. In the 
visits which they made to them, they copied the 
inscriptions and the paintings, without indicating the 
spot where they had found them, taking away all that 
could be taken, and placing it in some museum, and 
there the work of art, isolated from its surroundings 
and detached from the walls for which it had been 
made, lost its character and its importance. These 
curiosities of detail, which should only be accessory, 

Being much suspected of recurring to paganism, and watched by the 
Popes, they hid their meetings in the Christian cemeteries, where they 
were sure of not being followed. Is it not singular that after having 
sheltered the first Christian assemblies, the Catacombs should serve as 
an asylum for the pagans of the Renaissance ? 



THE CATACOMBS. 141 

caused the specific study of the cemeteries, which is the 
essential, to be neglected ; and the mine whence so 
many precious objects came was thus overlooked for 
the sake of the riches that were drawn from it. 
This, however, was the manner in which all ancient 
monuments were explored, and which proved so fatal 
to them, 

Signor Eossi resolutely changed this method. He 
dared to say that for two hundred years past the right 
road had been abandoned, that all his forerunners 
had been mistaken, and that it was necessary to get 
upon Bosio's track again, and resume the work where 
he had left it. He rightly maintained that, in order to 
draw more profit from the venerable remains of ancient 
Christianity, they must not be separated from the study 
of the spots where they were placed, and that if they 
deserve to be studied on account of the memories 
they recall, still more is it necessary to be well 
acquainted with the Catacombs themselves, which are 
the most astonishing work of budding Christianity. 
This is why he proposed, like Bosio, to study the dif- 
ferent Christian cemeteries successively ; to design their 
plan ; to search out the primitive extent of each, with 
the additions it has received ; to determine, as far as 
possible, the period when each gallery was hollowed 
out, which at the same time helps to determine the 
age of the monuments it contains; and, in a word, 
to discover the history and settle the topography 
of this immense subterranean city, as has been done 
with so much success for the one that was built above 
it. 

Such are Signor l^ossi's aim and the method he has 



142 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

professed to follow. We are about to see the results of 
his labours.^ 



I. 

THE IMPORTANCE WHICH CHRISTIANS ATTACHED TO SEPUL- 
TURE — THE CATACOMBS THEIR WORK, AND NOT OLD 
ABANDONED QUARRIES — HOW THEY WERE INDUCED 
TO HOLLOW THEM OUT — HYPOGEA OF DIFFERENT 
RELIGIONS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA — RULES 
ADOPTED BY THE CHURCH FOR BURIAL. 

The Catacombs are the place where the first Chris- 
tians buried their dead. In the last century some 
scholars held that they might have served as a common 
cemetery for the poor of all religions, but this is an 
opinion which it is now no longer possible to maintain. 
Eor thirty-five years past the works have been pushed 
on with vigour, and thousands of tombs have been dis- 
covered, yet in not a single instance was a pagan tomb 
met with. It may therefore be fearlessly affirmed that 
they were reserved for Christians alone. 

The Christians attached great importance to sepulture. 
The body being destined to come to life again, and 
share the soul's immortality, they thought that it 
should be taken care of after death, and given an 

^ I am about to expound them rapidly, according to Signor Rossi's 
great work {La Roma sotterranea cristiana, 3 vols., 1864;-1878). 
Among the books in which Signor Rossi's researches have been pre- 
sented to Frenchman, I will cite the Noxivellcs etudes sur Ics catacombes, 
by M. Desbassyns de Richemont, and above all the translation of 
Messrs Northcote and Brownlow's book, published by M. Alard 
under the title Home soutcrrainc, Paris, Didier, 1872. 



THE CATACOMBS. 143 

honourable asylum while waiting for the great awaken- 
ing. "Soon," said Prudentius in his burial hymn, 
" soon the time will come when heat shall revive these 
bones, when blood shall gush anew in these veins, when 
life shall resume this abode which it has left. These 
bodies, long inert, which lay in the dust of tombs, shall 
spring upward once again to join their former souls.'' 
And he added in admirable lines : " Earth, receive and 
keep in thy maternal breast this mortal spoil which we 
confide to thee : it was the dwelling of a soul created 
by the author of all things ; 'twas here a spirit lived, 
quickened by the wisdom of Christ. Cover this body 
which we place within thy breast. One day He who 
created it and fashioned it with His hands, will ask thee 
for His work again." No one being excluded from this 
hope, the Christians took equal care for the interment of 
all the faithful. They would have been horrified to 
imitate the pagans, and fling the bodies of poor people 
into common graves (putiadi) to rot. We see that it 
was forbidden among them to place two bodies one 
above the other. Each was to have its own place 
wherein to repose alone until the last day. We know 
from Tertullian that a priest assisted at burials ; ^ the 
religion consecrated tombs. At the time of the perse- 
cution of Decius, the Eoman clergy, writing to their 
brethren at Carthage, reminded them that there is no 
more important duty than to give sepulture to 
martyrs and other Christians.^ The treasury of the 
Church was spent in helping the poor to live, and in 
properly burying them. Finally, St Ambrose agreed 



fertuUian, De anima, 51, - St Cyprian, E^p., 8, 



144 ARCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

that it was rightful to break, cause to be melted, and 
sell, the sacred vessels for the interment of the faithful. ^ 
These texts explain the construction of the Catacombs. 
Knowing the respect shown by the first Christians 
towards their dead, we are less astonished at the 
gigantic works which they undertook for their burial. 

But do these works in truth belong to them ? Are 
the Catacombs entirely the work of the Christians, or 
were they merely appropriated to their use? This 
question has given rise to great discussions. In the 
last century there was no lack of incredulous persons 
who denied the reality of Bosio's discoveries. When 
told that the first believers themselves dug out their 
cemeteries, they asked who had furnished a small and 
poor community with the means needed for the piercing of 
this tremendous number of underground galleries ; what 
could have been done with the earth drawn from them ; 
and how the members of a proscribed religion could 
have had the audacity thus to dig out the ground at 
the gates of Eome, and before the eyes of their per- 
secutors ? These objections seemed to the majority of 
scholars unanswerable, and troubled even the most 
intrepid defenders of the Catacombs. So, in reply, they 
thought it well to suppose them ancient quarries, 
whence the Eomans had for a long time du2 
pozzolana. The Christians had found them deserted, 
and, in order to convert them into their cemeteries, 
they only had to hollow out horizontal niches for the 
reception of the dead. The existence of these quarries 
was not a hypothesis ; it is attested by ancient writers. 

1 St Ambrose, Be off. II. 142, 



THE CATACOMBS. 145 

Cicero speaks of a man who was in his time murdered 
in them,^ and Suetonius relates that when they tried to 
persuade Nero to take refuge there, he declared that he 
would not bury himself alive.^ Being a little-fre- 
quented place, where people wishing to hide themselves 
could find an asylum, they suited the Christians for 
the purpose of celebrating their mysteries and burying 
their dead. Bottari bids us remark that they might 
easily have been known to them. Their religion was 
first spread among poor people and slaves — that is to 
say, among the class employed in digging the quarries. 
These were so many guides, who could lead their 
brethren through the turnings of the deserted galleries. 
This opinion, therefore, appeared perfectly probable. 
It had the advantage, too, of silencing the incredu- 
lous, so it was religiously accepted by every one for 
two centuries, and down to our time was received 
without dispute. However, it does not hold good 
before an attentive examination of the Catacombs. 
Pere Marchi began to undermine it, and Signor Eossi 
toppled it down. He has no trouble in showing that 
chambers 3 or 4 metres square, and galleries 1 
metre, at most, in width, would have been scarcely 
convenient for the extraction and transportation of 
jjozzolana. Ancient Eoman quarries exist, whose 
destination is not doubtful, and their appearance is 
very different from that of the Catacombs. The 
passages are wider, and the outlets multiplied. Every- 
thing about them appears more suited to the necessities 
of an industrial exploitation. Furthermore, Signor 

1 Cic, Fro. Clucntio, 14. " Suet., Nero, 48. 



146 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Michaele Eossi^ on carefully studying the nature 
of the ground in which the cemeteries of Rome are 
dug, remarked that the workers systematically avoid 
the banks of friable pozzolana, preferring to bore 
where the stone is spongier and harder, and he declares 
roundly that never could materials suited for building 
have been dug from the Catacombs. This reason is 
decisive, and clears up the last possible doubts that could 
have existed. This does not mean that the Christians 
did not occasionally appropriate to their use some of 
those abandoned quarries called arenaricR. History 
says that they did so, and the researches made of late 
years prove it. I will say later, on what occasion 
and by what motives they were led to do so in very 
exceptional cases. In fine, in the twenty-five or thirty 
cemeteries hitherto visited, only five of these ancient 
quarries have hitherto been recognised, and there are 
probably not many more. All the rest were made by 
the hands of the Christians. Drawings of diggers at 
work are often seen in the Catacombs. They are 
represented, pick in hand, attacking the overhanging 
rock. The attitude given to them, represents the 
manner in which they proceeded. They advanced 
boldly, making themselves a way through the strata 
of granular tufa, of which the soil of the Eoman Cam- 

^ Signor Michaele Rossi is the brother of Signer J. B. Eossi. He 
liad received the education of a lawyer, but became a geometrician 
from inclination. The desire to help his brother, who needed an 
associate to study the soil and design the plan of the galleries, 
developed in him a vocation which he did not know himself to 
possess. He soon made himself a name in this new science, 
and has even invented an ingenious machine to shorten the work 
of plan-raising, which took a medal at the London Exhibition. 



THE CATACOMBS. 147 

pagna is composed ; they dug the rock before them, sus- 
tained by their faith, " living in the entrails of the earth, 
like the monk in his cell," and these interminable 
galleries, said to contain 6,000,000 tombs, are entirely 
their work. 

Where did the first Christians learn this mode of 

sepulture, which required such terrible labour ? It 

has long since been answered that they learnt it from 

the Jews. It should have been added that in this the 

Jews only followed the custom of most of the peoples 

of the East. There was no other mode of interment 

in Syria. Everywhere where the Syrians penetrated 

— in Malta, in Sicily, in Sardinia — similar burial-places 

are found. M. Beule has confirmed the existence of 

Catacombs at Carthage; M. Eenan saw them in 

Phoenicia : Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, and the Chersonese 

contain a great number, and they occur even among 

the Etruscans, to whom an Oriental origin is sometimes 

attributed. Lastly, they are found every day at Eome, 

and this must not surprise us. At the end of the 

Eepublic and the beginning of the Empire, Eome 

was, in a manner, invaded by the nations of the East. 

They brought to this great, tolerant, distracted town their 

beliefs and their customs. They were allowed to pray 

to their gods after their own fashion, and to bury their 

dead as they chose. Not only were they unmolested, 

but they were allowed to preach their doctrines, and 

did not fail to do so. I do not believe that any town, 

even Alexandria under the Ptolemies, offered to the 

world a more curious and animated spectacle than 

Eome at the beginning of the Empire. Not only was 

it the industrial and political capital of the world, it 



148 AECHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

was also the spot where all the philosophies and all 
the religions of the world met. In the midst of 
enormous business activity, there reigned an activity 
of mind more remarkable yet. The weakening of ancient 
beliefs left the field open to new opinions, so that the 
Christians profited by the circumstance to agitate and 
spread, and made proselytes everywhere. The religions 
of the East especially attracted men's souls by the 
strangeness of their rites and the mysterious turn of 
their doctrines. Some quite yielded themselves up to 
them ; the greater number, without being entirely 
permeated by their spirit, at least imitated their com- 
monest practices. It is thus that many Eomans took 
to burying their dead in the manner of the Orientals. 
From the time of the Antonines, the custom of burn- 
ing the dead became less and less frequent, and at 
the time of Macrobius it scarcely existed at all.^ So 
the pagans at an early date possessed hypogea, like 
those of the nations of the East. I imagine that from 
the end of the second century the Eoman Campagna 
must have been dug in every direction. The Jews, the 
Phoenicians, the worshippers of Mithra and Sabazius, 
and, above all, the Christians, who were becoming so 
numerous, and sometimes the pagans, hollowed out 
the ground for their sepulchres. There was in these 
various religions a kind of interior and subterranean 
activity, corresponding with that outside. These sepulchre 
diggers sought to avoid each other,^ but they did not 

^Macrobius, Sat., VIII. 7. 

- Signor Rossi shows that more than once the Christian galleries have 
abruptly turned aside in order not to touch somQhypogeum of another 
cult. 



THE CATACOMBS. 149 

always succeed. In the heart of the Catacombs a cave 
is found where a priest of Sabazius and some of his 
disciples rest. The Christian workmen doiibtless 
came upon it suddenly, and it now communicates 
freely with the tombs of the martyrs. The num- 
ber of crypts that were then dug are incalculable. 
Fresh ones are discovered each day. Pagan liypogea 
are no longer rare. The names of more than forty 
Christian cemeteries are known. "We are acquainted 
with two Jewish Catacombs — that of Trastevere, 
which is anterior to Christianity, and that on 
the Via Appia, and it is to be hoped that more 
will be found that will teach us what we should so 
much like to know — the constitution and government 
of the synagogues at Eome. Perhaps, too, we may 
come upon those of the dissenting sects of Christianity. 
We know that they, too, had Catacombs, and that in 
order to give them some authority, they went and stole 
the bodies of the most respected martyrs from the 
orthodox Catacombs, and placed them with themselves. 
What light will not these discoveries throw upon the 
religious history of those times, if they are always 
directed by men of honesty and science, like Signer 
Rossi ? 

Among all those burial-places, which so much re- 
semble each other, the Christian cemeteries may be recog- 
nised by two signs. In the first place, they are much 
more extensive than the others. Nowhere have such 
a development of galleries and such an accumulation 
of tombs been found, and never did any religion or 
any nation seem to feel so strongly as the Christians 
the need to group together and unite in death. Then 



150 akcHjEOLOGical rambles. 

the niches containing the bodies are open in the Jewish 
crypts and closed in the Christian Catacombs. This 
difference is connected with the habit which the 
Christians had of assiduously visiting the tombs of 
the martyrs. With the Jews, who only opened the 
sepulchre when some one was to be buried, it was 
not necessary to protect the body from the indiscreet 
curiosity of visitors ; it was enough to roll a great stone 
to the entrance of the cave. It was different with the 
Christians, and their cemeteries being open to the 
faithful, their tombs of necessity had to be shut. In 
all else their Catacombs exactly resembled those of the 
Jews and other peoples of the East, and a first glance 
suffices to show that they learned this mode of burying 
their dead from them. 

Yet it must not be thought that a fixed rule and 
constant custom existed in the primitive Church as 
regards burial. The only law accepted by all, was not 
to use for one's self or for one's relations the tombs of 
pagans, and not to admit pagans into the cemeteries 
where the Christians slept. " Let the dead bury their 
dead," harshly said St Hilary, and we know that in 
the time of Cyprian a forgetfulness of this law 
occasioned the deposition of a bishop. Beyond this, 
the faithful were free, and they used their liberty. So 
we sometimes see them use isolated tombs. The 
epitaph of two spouses has been found, who had a 
resting-place made for them in their garden (in 
hortidis nostris secessimus), and who do not appear 
to excuse themselves for doing so. Another grave- 
stone contains a selfish inscription, a strange mixture 
of pagan habits with Christian terms, by which the 



THE CATACOMBS. 151 

possessor of the tomb cites before the judgment of 
the Lord whoever shall try to introduce another body 
into the grave he occupies or the grounds surrounding 
it. He wishes to have them all for himself alone. 
Yet the Christians were usually imbued with other 
feelings. As I said just now, they felt the need of rest- 
ing together. They desired to be united in death, as 
they had endeavoured to be united in life. From the 
first days they grouped themselves instinctively round 
the bishops and the martyrs, and in the whole of Chris- 
tendom those collections of tombs were soon formed, 
which received the name of places of repose or sleep 
{accuhitorium, xot/xT^Tr/ptov). 

Only, according to the country, these cemeteries were 
situated in the open air or hidden under ground. At 
Eome, subterranean burial was preferred. Was this 
because the Christians were there more in the sight of 
the governing powers and more feared their supervision ? 
More probably it was the order to remain faithful to 
the traditions of the newly-born Church, which, on 
leaving the Jewish community, had retained this of its 
customs. It was, above all, in order to imitate the 
tomb of Christ, whose life and death were the example 
of Christians. There can be no doubt that the 
sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, "which had not 
been used, and which he had caused to be cut in the 
rock," with its horizontal niche surmounted, for sole 
ornament, by an arched roof,^ served as a model for 

^ These niches hollowed out in the wall are called loculi. The 
arched roofs surmounting them have received the name of arcosolia. 
These are not found on all the tombs, but only above those of the 
most important personages. More ample details respecting these 



152 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the first Christian tombs. We are, therefore, certain 
that the Catacombs were the work of the Christians, 
and that they were dug by them and for them. It 
was necessary to be sure of it before beginning our 
study. This point established, we can enter and go 
through them. Only let us be careful to put our- 
selves under the guidance of Signer Eossi, for he is the 
best guide we can choose, if we would visit them with 
profit. 

11. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED BY A VISIT TO THE CATA- 
COMBS — THE IMMENSITY OF THE CITIES OF THE 
DEAD, AND CONSEQUENCES TO BE DRAWN FROM IT — 
RAPID DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY — RELIGION 
SEPARATES ITSELF FROM THE FAMILY AND THE 
COUNTRY — THE CATACOMBS THE MOST ANCIENT 
MONUMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AT ROME — MEMENTOES 
OF THE TIMES OF PERSECUTION CONTAINED IN THEM 
— MEMENTOES OF THE DAYS OF TRIUMPH. 

A VISIT to the Catacombs, especially if prolonged for 
several hours, may possibly cause more surprise than 
pleasure to people unprepared for it by some preliminary 



words will be found in Abbe Martigny's Dictionnaire des Antiquitis 
chretiennes. I profit by the occasion to recommend this excellent 
work, which is indispensable to all who would study the principles 
of Christian archeeology, and useful to people of the world for the 
understanding of many words that are read and repeated without being 
more than half understood. On using it, they will be very grateful 
to the modest and distinguished man who has known how to put 
together so much solid knowledge in so convenient a form. 



THE CATACOMBS. 153 

study. It will, perhaps, have but small effect on those 
to whom the history of the first years of Christianity is 
but little known. In any case it would lose much of its 
interest if one were not requested at every turn to 
remark certain particulars which of themselves scarce 
draw the attention, but which are, nevertheless, of great 
importance. At first all looks alike, and nothing seems 
particularly noticeable. We pass along narrow under- 
ground galleries, where it is difficult to walk two abreast, 
and we skirt walls pierced with parallel niches, very like 
great drawers placed one above the other, which were 
used for burial. When a body had been placed in one 
of them, the opening was closed by slabs of marble or 
bricks, on which the names of the deceased were 
inscribed. Almost all these bricks have been removed, 
and at the bottom of the niches the little heap of dust 
which, after fifteen centuries a decomposed body forms, 
is easily seen. From time to time we meet on our way 
more roomy and more ornate chambers for the dead of 
note. They usually contain paintings, nearly effaced, of 
which it is very difficult to seize even a few details by the 
doubtful light of the cerini, and which, when looked at 
rather hurriedly, appear to resemble each other very 
much. The galleries cut each other at right angles, 
forming a tangled labyrinth in which it is impossible to 
find one's way. When we have traversed one storey, 
staircases lead to a lower one, where the same 
spectacle is repeated, only the darkness seems to 
have doubled, breathing becomes more painful, and the 
heart is more and more oppressed as we plunge deeper 
into the earth and leave air and light farther and 
farther behind. 



154 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Having overcome this first impression, we begin to 
reason and reflect. First of all, it is difficult when the 
visit is prolonged not to be greatly struck with the great 
immensity of these cities of the dead. These superposed 
stories, these galleries added unceasingly to each other, 
these graves crowded more and more thickly along the 
walls, are a startling image of the rapidity with which 
Christianity spread in Eome. The first who buried their 
dead in the Catacombs do not seem to have expected such 
rapid progress. They were content to hollow out a few 
galleries close to the surface, and encumber them with 
huge sarcophagi placed against the wall. But soon, the 
ranks of the faithful augmenting, the number of the dead 
grew so considerable that it became impossible to take 
things so easily. It has often been asked whether there 
is not a great deal of exaggeration in those passages 
where the Fathers of the Church describe the mar- 
vellous development of Christianity to us, and show 
it to us from the end of the second century, filling 
"the cities, the islands, the castles, the camps, the 
tribes, the palaces, the Senate, the Forum, and only 
leaving to the pagans their temples." It must be 
owned that the indefinite increase of the cemeteries, 
with the necessity of constantly adding new galleries 
to the old, and of crowding the tombs one against 
the other, seems to prove them entirely in the 
right. 

The immense extent of the Catacombs ere long 
suggests another reflection, not devoid of importance. 
The pagan cemeteries, to which we cannot help com- 
paring them, were much less vast; they generally 
held but a single family. The largest are those 



THE CATACOMBS. 155 

containing the freedmen of the same master, the 
members of the same college, or poor people who had 
joined together, in order to build themselves a common 
tomb at less expense. It was another bond that 
united those who chose to sleep together in the 
Catacombs. Their country, their birth, their fortune, 
were often very diverse ; they belonged to different 
families; they did not pursue the same calling; and 
perhaps some of them never met during their lifetime. 
Their only bond of union was religion, but this bond 
became so powerful that it replaced all others. "We 
have just seen that the Church did not impose common 
burial upon the faithful as a duty, and that there 
were some among the first Christians who caused private 
tombs to be constructed upon their domains, to which 
they did not admit their fellows ; ^ but those must have 
been very rare, and almost all chose to be buried with 
their brethren. When we reflect on it, we will see that 
this was a serious innovation, and a new manner of con- 
sidering religion. Among almost all ancient nations, 
religion did not separate itself from the family and the 
country. Christianity first divided that which all 
Antiquity had united. Henceforth domestic or national 
gods ceased to be worshipped, and religion had its own 
independent existence outside the family and the State, 
and above them. Many of those who are buried in 



1 A few family tombs have also been found in the Catacombs, but 
they could not have been numerous. The earth dug from new 
galleries was generally used to fill up the old ones in which there was 
no more room. Thus it became impossible for a family to keep a 
tomb beyond one or two generations. 



156 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the Catacombs doubtless possessed domestic tombs 
elsewhere ; others might have been buried among 
people of their own condition with whom they had 
passed their lives, but all of them chose to rest in one 
of the great Christian cemeteries. They voluntarily 
renounced that neighbourhood of relations and friends, 
which until then had been regarded as one of the great 
consolations of death. They took their assigned place 
among strangers, who often came from the most distant 
countries, and to whom nothing attached them but 
their belief. Slaves, freedmen, and citizens ; Greeks, 
Eomans, and barbarians, forgot all these diversities of 
fortune and origin, and remembered only their common 
religion. Nothing was more opposed to ancient society 
than the separation which was then effected between 
the family or the State and religion. It is the work 
of Christianity, and it is in the Catacombs that it is 
most evidently manifested. 

Such are the reflections that first occur to the mind, 
even when we are content just to go rapidly through 
these long galleries. If we have time to look at them 
more closely, our interest and curiosity increase. Let 
us reflect that the Catacombs are the most ancient 
monument of Christianity at Eome. Tlie others only 
date from the fourth century — that is to say, from a 
time when the dogma was already fixed ; when the 
new religion had gained power and had found a language 
wherewith to express its tenets. 

In the Catacombs the history of primitive 
Christianity is almost complete, and in going over it 
we may follow all the vicissitudes of its agitated 
existence. These galleries which lead out freely upon 



THE CATACOMBS. 157 

the great public ways, these openings destined to give a 
little air and light to the hypogea^ are of a time when 
the Christians were tolerated, and confided in the protec- 
tion of authority. These dark entrances, on the contrary, 
and these tortuous ways, recall the period of the per- 
secutions. It is then that those little chapels were 
constructed, where the faithful assembled when they 
could no longer worship in open day. They are usually 
composed of two chambers, crossed by the gallery of 
the Catacombs, so that they are separated from each 
other, yet at the same time near enough for it to be 
possible to follow the sacred services in both of them. 
They were destined for the two sexes who, in the 
primitive Church, were never united. At the end of 
one of the chambers is the stone seat on which the 
priest took his place to celebrate the holy mysteries 
and talk to the assembly. There it is that words of 
exhortation, such as we find in the works of the fathers, 
must often have been pronounced, to kindle those 
present and give them courage to brave death for their 
faith. Here the letters were read, addressed by one 
church to another, to communicate their fears and 
hopes, and spur each other on to endure and express 
their beliefs. Not one of them recalls the period 
of gropings and struggles ; not one of them has pre- 
served relics of the heroic age of the Church. Further- 
more, they have been too often restored and remade ; 
they have assumed too modern an air. What is there 
remaining about the basilicas of Constantine really 
antique ? What trouble do we not have to picture to 
ourselves what St Laurentius, St Praxedes, or St Agnes 
were like when just built ? The Catacombs are better 



158 ARCHiEOLOGICAL K AMBLES. 

preserved. They have the good fortune to have been 
nearly forgotten and lost down to Bosio's time. If, 
since then, they have sometimes happened to be 
devastated by greedy amateurs or clumsy explorers, 
it has, at least, occurred to no one to rebuild, under 
pretence of repairing them. They are the most vener- 
able remains, the most authentic witness of the first 
centuries of Christianity, and there is no monument in 
Eome that better puts us in presence of those primitive 
times which are so little known to us and with which 
we so much desire to become acquainted. 

Everything now becomes interesting, and the least 
details now assume importance. We must raise with 
care these bricks which have been loosened from the 
tombs, and which travellers tread under foot ; for they 
may bear the mark of those who made them, and help 
to fix the date of the galleries. From time to time, 
our attention is called to a little niche in the sombre 
walls we are passing, or to a console jutting out ; here 
the clay-lamp was placed to light visitors. How many 
times have friends or relations passed before it, to pray 
and weep by a cherished tomb ! We pause a moment 
in those chambers, more roomy than the others, at 
the end of which we find a tomb disposed in the form of 
an altar. Signor Eossi tells us that they were used for 
family meetings. People gathered there on funeral 
anniversaries to implore the mercy of God for the 
departed : " To read together the holy books, and to sing 
hymns in honour of the dead who sleep in the Lord." 
It is easy to imagine the effect which such ceremonies 
must have produced upon pious souls. In the midst of 
this solemn silence, between these walls lined with 



THE CATACOMBS. 159 

corpses, they seemed to live quite in the company of 
those they had lost. The emotion which seized them 
brought home more clearly that oneness of the dead 
with the living which paganism had recognised, and 
the Church made one of its dogmas. They felt so 
full of all these dear memories that it required no 
effort to believe that death cannot break the bonds 
which bind man to man, and that they continue to 
render each other mutual services beyond life — those 
who are no more profiting by the prayers of the Church, 
or, if they enjoy celestial beatitude, helping those who 
still live by their intercession.^ This is the sentiment 
expressed by the pious exclamations which visitors 
have traced on the wall with the point of a knife, 
and which Signer Eossi, not without great trouble, 
has succeeded in copying and making out. It was 
here, too, after those great persecutions which in- 
creased the number of the martyrs, that they took 
comfort together, encouraged each other to continue, 
and celebrated the memory of the dead, both glorifying 
them and glorying in them for the example they had 
given to the community of the faithful, " Happy our 
Church ! The Lord protects and honours it. It was, 
till now, shining white by the good works of our 
brothers. He vouchsafes it the glory of being reddened 
with the blood of the martyrs ; neither lilies nor roses are 
wanting in its crown ! "^ The epoch of the persecutions 

^ These expressions are borrowed from one of tlie most ancient 
rituals of the Roman Church, cited by Signer Rossi : Dejundorum 
jidelium animoe quae ieatitudinc gaudent nobis opitulentur ; quae con- 
solationc indigent UcclesM precibuit absolvantvr. 

' St Cyprian, EpisL, 10. 



160 AUCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

seems to have remained more vividly impressed upon 
the Christian cemeteries than all the others, and Signor 
Eossi shows us traces of it everywhere. He points out 
how the old staircases were then demolished and the 
great galleries filled up, in order to shelter the tombs 
of the martyrs from profanation. New roads were 
hurriedly made, leading to those abandoned sand-pits 
{arenaricB) of which I spoke just now. That way they 
could go in and out without arousing suspicion; and 
they endeavoured to make even these secret issues 
impracticable for strangers and invaders. Signor 
Eossi found in the gallery of Callistus a staircase the 
steps of which are abruptly interrupted. It was only 
possible to proceed thence into the interior galleries by 
means of a ladder, placed by an accomplice at a given 
signal, and which he withdrew when all the faithful 
had entered. But these minute precautions did not 
always suffice to save the Christians. We know that 
there were spies and traitors among them who warned 
the police. "You know the days of our meetings," 
said Tertullian to the magistrates, " you have your eye 
upon us even in our most secret meetings ; so you 
often come to surprise and overwhelm us ! " The 
emperor's soldiers more than once penetrated into the 
Catacombs, interrupting the ceremonies, and striking 
down without pity all whom they could seize. Inscrip- 
tions, of which a few fragments have reached us, 
preserve the memory of these sanguinary executions. 
Perhaps one day that chamber will be found, where 
some unfortunate Christians, surprised in the act of 
celebrating their worship on the tomb of a martyr. 



THE CATACOMBS. 161 

were walled up and left to die of hunger. Pope 
Damascus, in repairing the Christian cemeteries, wished 
that the spot that witnessed this terrible scene should 
be respected. He contented himself with opening in 
the wall a broad window, whence the faithful could 
see the bodies stretched upon the ground, just as death 
had smitten them. 

Beside these witnesses of proscription and mourning, 
the Catacombs retain traces of those days of triumph. 
Everywhere the remains of great works are seen, which 
were undertaken after peace came to the Church, in order 
to consolidate or embellish them. After Constantine, 
the practice of burying the dead in them was gradually 
discontinued, and henceforth they were only a monu- 
ment surrounded with veneration. Pilgrims came to 
visit them from all the countries of Christendom. All 
wished to see the sepulchres of famous martyrs; all 
desired to bear away some pious memento of their 
journey. There was even a queen who sent a priest on 
purpose to collect and bring away oil from the lamps 
which burnt before the tombs of the saints. The 
invasions of the barbarians interrupted this worship. ■ 
Alaric, Vitiges, Ataulf in turn devastated the Eoman 
Campagna. In order to shelter the holy relics from 
these ravages, they had reluctantly to take them from 
their tombs and bring them to Eome, where they were 
distributed among the different churches. Henceforth 
there was no longer any reason to visit the Catacombs, 
and down to the sixteenth century almost their very 
trace and memory were lost. 



162 ARCHAEOLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

III. 

THE INSCRIPTIONS AND PAINTINGS IN THE CATACOMBS — 
CHARACTER OF THE MOST ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS — 
THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIAN ART — THE FIRST SUBJECTS 
TREATED BY THE ARTISTS OF THE CATACOMBS — 
IMITATION OF ANTIQUE TYPES — REPRODUCTION OF 
CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS — SYMBOLISM — ORIGIN OF HIS- 
TORICAL PAINTING — TO WHAT EXTENT THE CHRIS- 
TIAN ARTISTS ADHERED TO ANTIQUE ART. 

It might be feared, at first sight, that history would 
not l3e able to derive much profit from these thousands 
of tombs, all resembling each other, and enclosing a 
whole nation of unknown dead. But these monuments 
are not so mute as they seem ; epitaphs are found on 
almost all, while some are ornamented with bas-reliefs 
or frescoes. These inscriptions and paintings seem to 
lend them a voice. All mutilated and incomplete 
though they be, they teach us something of the life 
and feelings of those who sleep in the Catacombs. 

The most ancient of the inscriptions are written in 
Greek. At the beginning of the third century this 
was still the official language of the Church. Latin 
only came later on. Among the epitaphs of the Popes, 
found by Signor Eossi in the cemetery of Calixtus, that 
of St Cornelius, who died in 252, is the only one in 
Latin. Greek appears only to have been abandoned 
little by little, and with regret. Some curious in- 
scriptions enable us to note the change from one 
language to the other, and they show us the scruple 
felt at leaving that which the Church had used almost 



THE CATACOMBS. 163 

since its origin. In several of them the Latin words 
are written in Greek characters, and there are some in 
which the two tongues somewhat strangely mingle 
{Julia Clcmdiane in pace et irene). Only in the most 
recent galleries does Latin dominate almost exclusively. 
The characteristics of the most ancient epitaphs 
are great shortness and simplicity. Christian epi- 
graphy of the first times loved the garrulity of 
Greek inscriptions no more than it did the majestic 
solemnity of Eoman inscriptions. It was content to 
write one of the names of the dead (we know that 
under the Empire it was a sort of distinction to 
bear many), and it added thereto some pious exclama- 
tions, all signifying much the same thing: "Peace 
with thee ! " " Sleep in Christ ! " " May thy soul rest 
with the Lord ! " The time the deceased has lived and 
the date of his death are rarely mentioned ; what are 
these earthly memories to him who has taken posses- 
sion of eternity ? While the pagans took great care to 
inscribe on tombs the dignities filled by the deceased, 
and the rank which he held in life, they are never 
mentioned among the Christians. "With us," said 
Lactantius, "there is no difference between the poor 
and the rich, the slave and the free man. We call 
ourselves brothers, because we believe ourselves to be 
all equal." ^ Do what we may, equality always suffers 

^ The Christians did not act thus in obedience to an express and 
imposed rule, but from a sort of common and spontaneous feeling. 
This is proved by the circumstance that in the crypt of Lucina, the 
most ancient part of the cemetery of Calixtus, mention is made of a 
freedman ; and although ecclesiastical dignities are usually no more 
recorded than others, we see that there were three priests, and 



164 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

during life ; the brothers were at least resolved to pre- 
serve it in death. Their heroic humility is attended 
with some inconvenience so far as we are concerned, 
and the silence to which they condemned themselves 
deprives us of a mass of curious information. We 
learn much, however, from what they choose to tell 
us. Their epitaphs show us that certain opinions, 
which are sometimes thought new, existed in the 
Christian community from the end of the third century. 
They believed, for instance, in the efficacy of the 
prayers of the living for the dead. The exclamations 
I have just quoted are more than wishes — they 
contain requests made to God, which are supposed 
to be listened to. The intercession of the saints for 
those who pray to them was believed in. The faithful, 
who visited the tomb of a martyr with such fervour, 
indeed thought that he took an interest in their 
weal, and would help them to attain it. In one of the 
inscriptions gathered by Signor Eossi, a young maiden 
is addressed who has just died, and who is believed 
to be a saint, and they tell her : " Invoke God for 
Phcebe and for her husband (jtete pro Plicebe et p'o 
Virginia ejus." ^) 

Later on, this primitive simplicity of the inscriptions 

that one of them was at the same time a priest and a physician. It 
was not therefore absolutely forbidden to preserve the memory of 
social distinctions in Christians epitaphs, and the prevailing abstention 
from so doing was voluntary. 

^ By virginis was meant a man who had no other wife. It is not, 
as might be thought, quite a Christian term. The pagans used it. If 
they did not condemn second marriages so severely as certain rigid 
Christians did, they at least desired to show respect and approval 
towards those who had not made a bad use of the facility of divorce. 



THE CATACOMBS. 165 

underwent a change. Eegrets first appear, and it was 
difficult, indeed, for faith always to be strong enough 
to restrain them. Then a timid compliment to the 
dead was indulged in. Of a young girl it was said 
that she was an " innocent soul," or " a dove without 
bitterness ; " while a man was called " very holy," or 
even "incomparable." The number of years he had 
lived was noted, and the exact date of his burial, or, 
as they said, his deposition. At length these details 
were reproduced in like manner on all tombs. The 
style of Christian inscriptions was then fixed, or, in 
other words, formula and convention slipped into a 
place where only an impulse of the heart should ever 
have been found. I well understand that there would 
be some to whom this progress is not altogether 
pleasing. In presence of these inscriptions of the 
fourth century, so ordered and so regular, it is difficult 
not to regret the time when sorrow and faith were less 
disciplined, and when each expressed his regrets 
and his hopes as he felt them, without being care- 
ful to follow custom, and weep like every one else. 

The paintings are still more important than the 
inscriptions ; for they enable us to go back to the 
beginnings of Christian art. As it arose from the 
worship of the dead, its first attempts were naturally 
made in the Catacombs. The Christians were very 
anxious by every means to honour the sepulture of 
those they had lost, especially when they had died 
victims to some persecution. Doubtless, sculpture and 
painting must have seemed to them profaned by the 
every-day use which the pagans made of them ; yet 
they did not hesitate to adopt them for their cemeteries. 



166 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

They psrhaps thought that by employing them to 
embellish the last abode of their brothers, they purified 
them. 

The first artists who were called upon to decorate 
the Christian tombs with frescoes or bas-reliefs, were 
in all probability very much embarrassed. What sub- 
jects should they represent ? For an art at its very 
beginning, the question was a grave one. As the 
Christian sect was proscribed, and their doctrine had to 
remain secret, they naturally at first used certain signs 
of which they alone knew the true meaning, in order 
to recognise each other. This was done in the pagan 
mysteries. We know that objects were distributed 
among the initiated which they were to keep, and which 
were to remind them of what they had seen during the 
ceremonies of initiation.^ It was the same with the 
first Christians. Clement of Alexandria reports that 
they had engraved upon their rings the image of the 
dove, of the fish, of the ship with sails spread, of the 
harp, of the anchor, etc.^ These were symbols which 
recalled to them the most secret truths of their religion. 
Almost all these symbols are found again in the Cata- 
combs ; but they are not alone there. Signs so dark 
and vague could not suffice the faithful, and the sculp- 
tors and painters whom they employed, and who were 
for the most part deserters from paganism, had to 
endeavour to represent their new beliefs in a manner 
more direct, more clear, and more strictly artistic. But 
everything here had to be created. Since the Jews 
offered no model in this respect, they were of necessity 

^ Apuleius, De magia, 55. - Clement of Alex,, Pcedag., III. 11. 



THE CATACOMBS. 167 

obliged to apply elsewhere, and take art where it was 
to be found, — that is to say, in the pagan schools. 
They did so without scruple, so long as only those 
simple ornaments were in question which had no real 
meaning, and were found everywhere. Tertullian him- 
self, the severe doctor, allowed them to do this. ^ In 
order to adorn the walls and roofs of their funeral 
chambers, they copied the graceful decorations com- 
monly used in the houses of the pagans. Ceilings of 
this kind are numerous enough in the Catacombs, and 
there are some in the cemetery of Calixtus which may 
be placed among the most pleasing that Antiquity has 
left us. ^ As at Pompeii, we see charming arabesques, 
birds, and flowers, and even those winged genii which 
seem to fly in space. Is it not strange that these 
marvels of grace and elegance, in which there breathes 
all the smiling art of Greece, should be found amid the 
dark galleries of an underground cemetery ? We must 
believe that the details and emblems of this decorative 
painting, by dint of being used in over-profusion, had 
lost all meaning for the mind. It remained only a 
pleasure for the eyes, and no one was scandalised or 
even surprised at seeing them reproduced above the 
tomb of a believer. But the Christian artists dared 
more. It being difficult for them suddenly to invent 
an original expression for their beliefs, they imitated 
some of the purest types of classic art, whenever they 
could be allegorically applied to the new religion. This 
imitation is seen already in " The Good Shepherd," which 
seems to have been inspired, at least as to its first idea 

1 Tert., Adv. Marc, 11, 29. ^ jjoggj^ iJo?na sott, X. 18. 



168 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

and general composition, by some ancient paintings.^ 
It is more evident yet in those fine frescoes where the 
Saviour is shown with the attributes of Orpheus. The 
singer of Thrace, drawing the beasts and the rocks by 
the sound of his lyre, might seem an image of Him 
whose word conquered the most barbarous nations and 
the lowest classes among civilized people. Three repro- 
ductions of this subject are known in the Catacombs. 
The sculptors do the same as the painters, and even go 
farther still. The painters worked in the Catacombs 
themselves, far from the indiscreet and the unbelieving, 
and their frescoes were imagined and executed in this 
silent city of the dead, where everything invited the 
artist to yield himself up to the ardour of his faith. 
The sarcophagi were worked in the studios, where all 
could see them, and this necessitated prudence. It is 
even probable that most often, when the Christians 
wanted a tomb of stone or marble, they took it ready 
made from the merchant, choosing that in which the 
figures were least shocking to their opinions. It is thus 
that some are found in the cemetery of Calixtus repre- 
senting the adventure of Ulysses with the Sirens, and 
the poetic story of Psyche and Cupid.- 

But Christian art was not long to live by borrowing. 
A doctrine so young, so full of sap and life, which took 
possession of the entire soul and transformed it, must 

^ Kossi, Roma solt., I. 347 : In quanta per o alia comjjosizione artistica 
del grupj^o, nulla osta a credere che i primi piUori eristiani abbiano 
2)otu.to imitare, per quanta al laro scapo si canfaceva, qualcke bel tipo 
d'un simile gruppo di antico e dassico stile. 

- As a matter of fact, the figures of tliis last sarcophagus had been 
covered with lime. But there are others concerning which the samo 
scruples had not existed. See on this subject, Collignon, Essai sur 
Ics monuments rclati/s an mythe du Psyche, p. 436, etc. 



THE CATACOMBS. 169 

soon come to express itself in a manner of its own. We 
have already remarked that even when it borrows types 
not belonging to it, it fashions them in its own way, 
and seeks to appropriate them. The Orpheus of the 
cemetery of Calixtus, instead of drawing the beasts and 
the trees to him, as the fable relates, and as he is repre- 
sented at Pompeii, has only two sheep at his feet, which 
seem to listen to his songs. We see that he is in pro- 
cess of confusion with the Good Pastor. Soon the 
artists dared to draw their inspiration directly from 
their belief, and to represent events taken from the 
holy books. Prom the Old Testament there was " The 
Sacrifice of Isaac," " The Passage of the Eed Sea," the 
history of Jonah, of Daniel, of Susanna, of the Three 
Children in the Furnace ; from the New Testament : 
" The Christ Child visited by the Magi," " The Cure of 
the Paralytic," "The Eaising of Lazarus," and the 
" Multiplying of the Fishes." It has been remarked 
that they always abstain from recalling the painful 
circumstances of the Passion. Did they fear by repre- 
senting Christ dying an infamous death, to scandalise 
the weak, to give scoffers a subject for ridicule, or to 
fail in respect towards their God ? What is certain is, 
that they never represented the scenes which passed 
between the judgment of Pilate and the Piesurrection. 
It is not uninteresting to remark that, on the contrary, 
the artists of the Middle Ages delighted to treat those 
subjects which their predecessors so carefully avoided ; 
that they abounded in representations of the Flagellation 
and of the Crucifixion, and that these spectacles, by 
touching the faithful to the heart, served to give a 
wonderful impulse to popular devotion. 



170 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Among the questions which present themselves to 
the mind when reviewing the work of Christian painters 
and sculptors in the Catacombs, there are two, 
especially, to which it does not seem easy to reply. 
These artists did not treat without distinction all the 
subjects furnished them by the holy books ; they only 
took a certain number of them, which they reproduced 
continually. Why did they prefer the former to the 
latter, and what was the reason of their choice ? They 
often unite different subjects in a way that appears 
quite arbitrary, and place, one after the other, scenes 
that do not seem to follow, and have no connection 
with each other. Did they act at random, or must we 
believe that for these strange groupings they had some 
motive which it were possible to guess ? Usually 
everything is explained by symbolism, and symbolism 
must certainly have played a great part in the begin- 
nings of Christian art. It is known that the doctors of 
the Church, above all in the East, often understood the 
Bible narratives in a figurative sense, and that they 
loved to see in them moral allegories or prophetic images 
of what was to come to pass under the new law. In 
doing so, they followed the example of Philo, who took 
much pains to give the Old Testament a philosophic 
meaning, and who professed to find in it the whole of 
Plato's doctrine. Philo himself imitated those pagan 
theologians who, desiring to be at the same time philo- 
sophers and devotees, and preserve their respect for 
ancient beliefs without too much humblincr their reason, 
regarded the legends of mythology as symbols or 
figures, hiding beneath a rude envelope deep and 
useful truths. Christianity inherited all this work 



THE CATACOMBS. 171 

of exegesis, and may be said to have sometimes 
found the legacy rather burdensome. One of the 
causes of the fatigue we occasionally experience in 
reading the Fathers of the Church, is the effort they 
are continually making to find for everything figurative 
meanings; the mixture of subtle interpretations and 
sincere outbursts, of touching simplicity and refined 
pedantry, of naweU and scholasticism, of youthfulness 
with senility, which at every moment reminds us that 
Christianity was a new religion, born in an old epoch, 
and that even in the best works of its greatest doctors 
it has often two ages at the same time. 

Like contrasts are found again in the works of art of 
the first Christians. It is natural that these artists, 
who followed the taste of their period, should have 
often given a symbolic meaning to the scenes they 
represented in their paintings or their bas-reliefs. 
They seem even to have sometimes made a point of 
telling us this. A fresco in the Catacombs represents 
a sheep between two wolves. Below it we read the 
inscription : Susanna, seniores. So, by the two wolves 
and the sheep, the adventure of Susanna is figured. 
ISToah stretching his arm towards the dove who brings 
him the desired branch, was an image of the Christian 
arrived at the term of his voyage, saved from the perils 
of the world, and about to attain Heaven. And the 
proof of this is, that Noah is occasionally replaced on 
the sarcophagi by the deceased, irrespective of age or 
sex, so that, instead of the venerable patriarch, one is 
much surprised to see quite a young man, or even a 
young woman, coming out of the ark. 

It is then certain that among the paintings or bas- 



172 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

reliefs of the Catacombs, there must be many containing 
images or symbols, and that, for instance, in the figure 
of Jonah cast forth by the whale, the paralytic cured, 
and Lazarus brought to life, the faithful of the early 
ages formed allusions confirmatory of their hopes of 
immortality. What they then easily recognised we 
have now great pains in divining. However, some 
experts have tried to give us the key of these 
allegories.^ In the cemetery of Calixtus two very 
ancient chambers were discovered, close to each other, 
which were built at the same time and decorated 
in the same spirit — perhaps by the same artists. They 
have represented a series of scenes drawn from the 
Old and New Testaments, believed to be entirely 
symbolical, and to contain in a consecutive and 
almost dogmatic form the most sacred doctrines of 
the Christians. Signer Eossi undertakes to give the 
sense of all these symbols, whether by comparing the 
two chambers with each other or by invoking the 
authority of the Fathers of the Church.^ He shows 
that the sacred books are here interpreted after the 
manner of Origines and his disciples. Nothing is 
more remarkable than to see how strangely allegory 
and truth are mixed up. The rapid succession, and 
even confusion of the sense proper and the imaged 
meaning shows how accustomed everybody then was 
to this subtle exegesis, and how easily the doctor or 
the artist was followed in his expository fancies. This 
personage striking the rock is now Moses and now St 

^ These explanations have been carried much too far, and symbols 
and images discerned everywhere. M. Le Blant has shown the teme- 
rity of these attempts in his J^tude sur les sarcophages d' Aries p. 15, etc. 

^ Rossi, Rovia sott., II. p. 331. 



THE CATACOMBS, 173 

Peter ;i and the flowing water is not only that destined 
to refresh the Hebrews in the desert, it is the source of 
grace and life, which, a little further on, we see a priest 
use to regenerate a young man by baptising him ; it 
is also the immense sea of the world, into which the 
holy fisher of souls casts his nets. From one scene 
to another, and often in the same scenes, allegories 
follow, destroy, confuse, and replace each other. Here 
the fish represents the believer conquered to the faith ; 
elsewhere it is Christ Himself who, on the three-legged 
table, beside the mystic bread, offers Himself as susten- 
ance to His disciples. The vessel from which Jonah is 
flung into the sea has a cross on its mast ; it is at the 
same time the Church, which a contemporary of St 
Calixtus compares to a ship beaten by the waves, yet 
never sunk. If Signor Eossi's manner of explaining 
these paintings is the right one, it may be concluded that 
Eome did not remain so great a stranger as is supposed 
to those works of ingenious interpretation, of which 
the learned Church of Alexandria became the centre, 
and which for us is summed up in the great name of 
Origines. But at Eome the movement soon stopped. 
The Eoman mind could not have had much taste for 
these refined allegories and these bold subtleties in 
which the Greek genius delights. It rather prefers to 
take things in their historical and real sense than to 
lose itself in symbolic interpretations, into which there 
always enters a little imagination. A lover of light, 
of order, and of discipline, it always seeks to submit 
individual wills to the general sentiment. Thus it does 

^ This allegory is certain. The name of St Peter is sometimes 
written above the personage striking the rock of Horeb to make the 
water gush forth. 



174 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

not reject the formula which throws all ideas into a 
uniform mould, and affords it the spectacle — preferred 
by it to all others — the semblance of unity. The day 
when it became dominant in the Church it changed its 
character and its destinies. Perhaps, if the influence of 
the Jews and the Greeks had been stronger, it would 
have made it a community, and sometimes an anarchy 
of souls in search of the truth, discussing passionately 
the means to discover it, and seeking it by different ways. 
But, thanks to the Eoman spirit which took possession 
of the Church, it became above all things a government. 
Art, like everything else, felt this influence, and 
seems to enter upon new ways in proportion as the 
Eoman spirit gains the upper hand in the Church. 
Signer Eossi shows that in chambers of somewhat more 
recent date than those of which I have just spoken, the 
frescoes are still fine, but have no longer the same 
character. Allegories become more rare, and those we 
find are not treated with the same freedom and the 
same variety. The age of historical painting begins ; 
its birth is seen, as it were, in the Catacombs. Signer 
Eossi discovered a very curious picture there, and one 
which seems to represent an almost contemporaneous 
event. Erect upon a suggestum, a personage of grave 
and threatening look, dressed in the ijretexta, and wearing 
a crown, angrily addresses a young man placed in front 
of him. Behind them, a man also wearing a crown 
upon his head, and with his hand placed upon his chin, 
seems to retire in displeasure. Signer Eossi beholds in this 
picture a scene from the persecutions, and it is, according 
to him, the interrogation of a martyr. The examining 
magistrate, the emperor perhaps, is represented with 



THE CATACOMBS. 175 

his usual attributes. The Christian has indeed the bear- 
ing of a man confessing his faith : his features breathe 
gentleness and resolution, and the artist has given his 
eyes a strange brightness. He looks at no one ; he does 
not appear to listen to what is said to him, and is 
evidently filled with other thouglits. As for the person 
who is retiring, he is doubtless a pagan priest who has 
not been able to induce the believer to sacrifice to the 
gods. This is probably the most ancient painting of a 
martyr that we possess. It is the beginning of a genre 
which, from the fourth and fifth centuries, was to become 
very much in vogue.^ 

The Catacombs, while acquainting us with the 
beginnings of Christian art, afford us some particulars 
— the only ones we possess — touching the artists who 
decorated them : humble artists, who worked with such 
devotion in silence and darkness for the honour of their 
brothers much more than for the glory of their own 
names ! Nothing has remained of them except their 
works ; but the work enables us to guess the workman. 
Need we say that they were pious Christians and sincere 
believers ? They must, indeed, have been so, to shut 
themselves up thus in these dark abodes, and paint 
pictures which no sunbeam was ever to illumine. But 
their piety did not induce them entirely to sacrifice 
their independence. They were not so much subdued 
by ecclesiastical influences as is thought, and it is not 
true to say, as has been asserted, that the Church held 
and guided their hands. The frequent mistakes they 
commit against the text of the sacred books shows that 
personal initiation, with all its errors and caprices, had 
1 Prudentius, Pcrist., IX. and XI. 126. 



176 ARCH-'EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

some part in their works.^ The resemblances remarked 
between them are less the effect of a command given 
or a direction received, than of a certain sterility of 
invention ; the diversities, however slight they may be, 
prove that they did not work according to a unique and 
imposed model. Neither did they forget that they were 
artists as well as Christians. They did not think them- 
selves free to withdraw from the eternal conditions of 
art, under pretext that they were working for a new 
religion. Their devotion did not alieuate them from all 
professional care, and they did not consider it an 
impiety to conform to the rules of taste and compose a 
picture with which the eye should be charmed. Some 
indications show that, in the arrangement of their 
frescoes and their bas-reliefs, they had not always the 
deep intentions and mysterious designs attributed to 
them ; that they simply let themselves be guided by 
reasons of order and symmetry ; that they put certain 
subjects in certain places because they formed a pleas- 
ing spectacle, and that they placed opposite to each 
other scenes which, either on account of subject or 
date, ought to have been placed far apart; but the 
composition and arrangement of which seemed to 
have marked them out as pendants to each other.- 
Although antique art had placed itself so completely 
at the service of paganism, they studied its masterpieces 
and strove to imitate them. We have seen that in the 
early ages, when their faith was more fervent, they did 
not scruple to borrow from it images by which they 
represented their God. Of a truth, these loans never 

^ See, on these errors,Le Blaut, £tude sur Ics sarcophages d'Arl^, p. 8. 
' Le Blaut, Sarcophages, p. 13. 



THE CATACOMBS. 177 

entirely ceased, and even in the works most directly 
inspired by the new religion, details are often found 
recalling the ancient legends and the art which so often 
reproduced them.^ Thus, in becoming Christians, these 
artists did not abjure their understanding and love of 
the beautiful works of the painters and sculptors of 
Greece. They did not think themselves bound to con- 
demn and proscribe them, since, on the contrary, they 
endeavoured to appropriate them to their religion. If 
it is true to say that the Eenaissance had, above all, for 
its principle to clothe new ideas with the forms of 
ancient Art, the Eenaissance began at the Catacombs. 

IV. 

THE CEMETERY OF CALIXTUS — SIGNOR ROSSI SUCCEEDS 
IN FINDING IT — THE INDICATIONS WHICH ENABLE 
HIM TO DISCOVER THE TOMBS OF THE MARTYRS — 
WORKS CARRIED OUT AFTER THE TIME OF CON- 
STANTINE IN THE CELEBRATED CRYPTS — GRAFFITI 
OF PILGRIMS — WHY THE CEMETERY TOOK THE NAME 
OF CALIXTUS — HISTORY OF THIS POPE, ACCORDING TO 
THE PHILOSOPHUMENA — WHY THE POPES OF THE 
THIRD CENTURY WERE BURIED IN THE CEMETERY OF 
CALIXTUS, AND HOW IT BECAME THE PROPERTY OF 
THE CHURCH — DISCOVERY OF THE PAPAL CRYPT. 

We have thus far been content to study the Catacombs 
in general : we have sought to ascertain their destination, 

^ Thus the monster which swallowed Jonah is represented just like 
the one which threatens Andromache ; dead Lazarus is placed in a 
pagan herotcm ; and Noah's ark is an exact reproduction of the chest 
in which Danae is exposed on the waves, etc. 

M 



178 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

have described the aspect they present to the visitor, 
and have spoken of the inscriptions and paintings they 
contain. On all these subjects Signer Eossi has shed 
much light; but he has done more — or rather he has 
done something else. He continually repeats that his 
method is altogether analytic. He will not begin, like 
so many others, by general views, and, with him, genera- 
lities only result from the study of the details. It is 
these minute researches which he regards as the most 
important, and on which he especially prides himself. 
They must not, therefore, be forgotten when we under- 
take to make known his labours to the public. In 
order that their character and results may be quite 
understood, let us show him at work. By following 
him for a moment, and walking step for step behind 
him, we shall be able to understand the sureness of his 
method and the greatness of his discoveries. 

Signer Eossi, being resolved to proceed systematically, 
decided to study the different Christian cemeteries in 
order of their importance. He should therefore have 
begun with the crypts of the Vatican. St Peter was 
buried there, and for two centuries his successors 
chose to rest near his tomb. But these crypts have 
been crushed, as it were, under the foundations of the 
immense basilica built above them, and nothing of them 
now remains. After the cemetery of the Vatican, which 
was inaccessible, hierarchical order designated that 
bearing the name of Calixtus, said to contain the 
sepulchres of the Popes of the third century. It is 
on this side that Signer Eossi directed his researches. 

It was first of all necessary to find its site, which 
was no easy matter, for there was never a cemetery 



THE CATACOMBS. 179 

concerning whose position there had been so much 
discussion. That it must be along the Appian Way- 
was well known; but some confounded it with the 
Catacomb of St Pretaxtatus, others with that of St 
Sebastian. In the latter, marble slabs were even 
placed, which still exist, solemnly informing visitors 
" that they were in the place where St Cecilia was 
interred, and where rest the fifty Popes," that is to say, 
in the cemetery of St Calixtus. But this bold assump- 
tion of possession did not intimidate Signer Eossi. 
These slabs were placed in position in the fifteenth 
century, that is to say, when the Catacombs had been 
almost forgotten, and in his researches Signer Eossi was 
resolved only to decide by means of documents, going 
back to the period when they were known and visited, 
and when the name of each was accurately known, 
together with the martyrs it contained. First among 
those documents must be put a species of writings whose 
whole importance had hitherto not been recognised. 
The ancients, like ourselves, had "guide-books," and, 
indeed, in a town like Eome, where all the world 
congregated, it would have been difficult to do with- 
out them. Those preserved to us belong to the last 
period of the Empire. Usually an enumeration of the 
wonders of Eome is found in them — the squares, the 
palaces, the theatres, the porticoes, etc. They also 
contain itineraries, such as are found in the guide- 
books of our time, in which the traveller is conducted 
from one end of Eome to the other, telling him all 
the buildings he will meet with on his way. The old 
editions of these itineraries are short and dry, but in 
the more recent ones the need of interesting the reader 



180 AUCH.'EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

is felt, and he is told a crowd of extraordinary legends, in 
order to make him feel more pleasure in the curiosities 
he is shown. M. Jordan is even tempted to believe 
that they were sometimes adorned with illustrations, 
representing the more curious monuments;^ so that 
nothing was wanting which conduces to the success of 
our own guide-books. Their use was still frequent, even 
in the Middle Ages, and we possess itineraries of the 
sixth and seventh centuries, which guided pilgrims to 
the tombs of the martyrs. They may be said to have 
rendered Signor Eossi the same service, and shown him 
the way among the most celebrated Catacombs. Two 
of these itineraries especially, discovered at Salzburg 
in 1777, enumerate with a sufficiency of detail the 
Catacombs of the Appian Way. It is, thanks to 
them, that Signor Eossi was enabled to find the site of 
the cemetery of Calixtus again. 

The cemetery discovered, and the entrance to the 
underground galleries cleared, much still remained to 
be done. The itineraries informed Signor Eossi what 
tombs pilgrims of the seventh century went to visit 
there ; but they still had to be found. This was not 
an easy work. How was he to know where he was, and 
find his way amid those hundreds of galleries and 
thousands of tombs ? How could he be sure that he 
was taking the road leading to the famous crypts? 
Happily, here also precious indications were about to 
guide his researches. 

These indications were furnished to Signor Eossi by 
the works carried out in the cemeteries at the peace- 

^ Jordan, Topogr., I, 50. 



THE CATACOMBS. 181 

ful period of the Church, and of which the remains 
are still easily distinguishable at the present time. 
Triumphant Christianity honoured the asylum of its 
evil days, but, as the Catacombs had suffered much 
during the persecutions, and everything could not be 
repaired, especial care was directed to the crypts where 
the chief martyrs reposed. They were strengthened 
and embellished; new and finer entrances and more 
convenient staircases to descend into them were con- 
structed. "Wells {lucernaria) were also dug to give them 
light. The poet Prudentius, who saw the Catacombs 
under Theodosius, has described for us, in beautiful 
verses, the state they were then in, and the ever-flow- 
ing stream of pilgrims who visited them.^ He com- 
placently depicts the holes made in the roof to light 
the more important crypts ; he shows the darkness of 
the galleries interrupted from time to time by kind 
of islets of brightness, and those alternations of dark- 
ness and light which filled the soul with a religious 
awe. Xear the tombs of the saints the walls are 
covered with marble, or lined with plates of silver 
" which shine like a mirror." It was thither people 
repaired from all sides when the feast of some famous 
martyr came round. They come from Eome, and the 
imperial city pours forth the flood of its citizens. 
" They come also from the neighbouring lands. The 
peasants hasten in a crowd from the villages of Etruria 
and the Sabine." Each one sets gaily forth with his 
children and his wife. They hie them forward as swiftly 
as they may. The fields are too small to hold this 

^Prudentius, Perist., XL 155, etc. 



182 AKCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

joyous folk, and on the road, vast though it be, the 
huge crowd is seen to stop. " It is the same people 
who, in our days, willingly leaves its marshes or 
descends from its mountains in order to visit the 
miraculous Madonnas or the Bambino of Arc Cceli. 
Arrived at the tomb of the martyr, they all yield 
themselves up to that expressive and clamorous 
devotion of which the Italians have not lost the habit. 
From early morn they crowd to salute the saint. The 
throng who come to adore him pass and pass again 
till eventide. They kiss the shining silver plate which 
covers the tomb, they scatter perfumes there, and tears 
of tenderness flow from every eye." 

The pilgrims spoken of by Prudentius have left in 
the Catacombs traces of their passage. They were in 
the habit of writing their names, with some prayer, 
along the staircases and at the entrance of the crypts. 
Time has not altogether effaced these graffiti, which 
are found especially near the most frequented tombs. 
Signer Eossi faithfully copied all that he was able to 
read, and his trouble was not wasted. How many 
curious particulars are revealed to us by those few 
words which rude peasants of the fifth or sixth century 
traced upon the walls ! Among other strange revela- 
tions they acquaint us with one of those thousand 
links by which Christian devotion is attached to earlier 
beliefs. When we look from afar off, these delicate 
connections escape us, and it seems to us as if an abyss 
separated Christianity from the religions that preceded 
it ; but science, which studies things closely and neglects 
no detail, without entirely bridging the distance, at 
least re-establishes the transitions. It was a pious 



THE CATACOMBS. 183 

custom of the Greeks and Eomans, on visiting some 
famous temple, or even some monument that struck 
them with admiration, to recall their relations or their 
friends to mind, whether in order to recommend them 
to the god to whom the temple was consecrated, or to 
associate them in the pleasure produced in themselves 
by a fine sight. These acts of adoration or proscynemes, 
as they were called, in which the traveller associates 
with his personal impressions the names of those who 
are dear to him, occur frequently in Greece, and, above 
all, in Egypt. They are usually somewhat short, and 
little varied in their form. " Serapion, son of Aristom- 
mache, is come near unto the great Isis of Phile, and, 
moved by piety, remembered his parents." " I, PanoUios 
of Heliopolis, have visited the tombs of the kings, and 
thought of all my kindred." Yet all are not so simple 
and so cold, and we sometimes find veritable feeling in 
them. A Eoman lady, visiting the pyramids, remembers 
the brother she has lost, and writes these touching 
words : " I have seen the pyramids without thee, and 
the sight filled me with sadness. All I could do was 
to shed tears for thy fate ; then, faithful to the memory 
of my grief, I was fain to write this plaint." Signor 
Eossi, therefore, was not quite right in saying that the 
pagan proscynemes never contained anything more 
"than a cold and sterile formula," but Christianity 
certainly put more warmth and passion into them. 
What interests us above all in them is that they are 
natural and spontaneous. There is nothing official or 
conventional about them, as in the great inscriptions 
graven on marble. They are less pompous and less 
magnificent, but the impulse of the heart is much 



184 ARCH/EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

better felt. Sometimes the pilgrim simply writes his 
name, humbly asking some boon for himself, and 
uttering a few pious wishes for others. — Eustathius, 
humilis peccator ; tu qui legis, ora pro me, et habeas 
Dominum protectorem. At others, he implores the saint 
for himself or for the persons whom he loves : " Holy 
Martyrs, remember Dionysius ! " " Ask that Verecundus 
and his people may have a happy voyage." " Obtain 
repose for my father and for my brothers." But most 
often he is content to use this short formula, " Live ! " 
or, "May he live in God!" At the entrance to the 
crypt of Lucina are found these words, several times 
repeated : " Sofronia, live in God ! " {Sofroniam vivas ! ) 
Doubtless, after writing these words, the traveller went 
into the crypt, knelt down, and prayed at the foot of 
the martyr's tomb ; and confidence entered his heart 
with prayer. This is proved by the following inscrip- 
tion, traced by the same hand on the exit side : " My 
dear Sofronia, thou shalt live for ever ; yes, thou shalt 
live in the Lord ! " {Sofronia dulcis, semper vives Deo. 
Sofronia, vives ! ) 

Signer Rossi does not so carefully gather the 
mementoes, left by the period of Constantine and of 
Theodosius in the Catacombs, from mere curiosity. 
They have for him quite another importance, since 
they put him on the track of the historical crypts. 
As it was for them alone that, after the triumph of 
the Church, these broad staircases were built and these 
large light-holes dug, he is warned, when he comes 
across them, that some illustrious tomb is not far off. 
In order to find it, he has only to put himself in 
the footsteps of the pilgrims, of whom I have just 



THE CATACOMBS. 185 

spoken. Their graffiti guide him ; he walks as it were 
with them, and by the increasing warmth of their 
prayers, he can guess that he is nearing his goal. 
Once in the crypt, a hundred details, which he care- 
fully notes and compares with information furnished 
by the ancient historians, now informs him what 
martyr or confessor it is whose sepulchre they thus 
came to honour, and whose help they invoked. If 
it is a renowned saint, he rarely fails to discover, by 
diligent search, some remains of an inscription by 
St Damasus. This Pope was a great admirer, or 
rather a great devotee, of the Catacombs. He passed 
his life in repairing and embellishing them. He even 
composed little pieces of verse, to be placed above 
the tombs of saints, and recall their actions to the 
faithful. For their engraving on marble, Furius 
Filocalus, a renowned caligrapher, who styles himself 
the admirer and friend of Pope Damasus {Damasi 
'pwpae cultor atque amator), imagined a special alphabet, 
whose letters have at their extremities certain orna- 
ments which enable them to be easily recognised. 
As they were never used except for the verses of 
the Pope-poet, one is certain, on beholding one of 
these letters on a piece of broken marble, that one 
has in hand a fragment of an inscription by Damasus, 
and that one is consequently near the tomb of some 
great personage. 

It is by such means that Signer Kossi succeeds 
in finding his way almost with certainty in this 
labyrinth, and how, in so few years, he has discovered 
again so many famous tombs. Yet there was a 
sepulchre which he still lacked, and it was just the 



186 AECH^OLOGlCAL RAMBLES. 

one most necessary for him to discover. The opinions 
expressed by him respecting the position of the ceme- 
tery of St Calixtus had the disadvantage of newness. 
The many people who never pardon novelty are 
wrong. Under a government of priests, in a country 
where immobility was a physical need and a religions 
dogma, to change the least thing in received opinions 
was regarded as a crime. In order to obtain forgiveness 
for his innovations, to open the eyes of the incredulous, 
and to victoriously demonstrate that he was really in 
the cemetery of St Calixtus, it was requisite to find 
the sepulchre of the Popes of the third century. The 
question which Signor Eossi was trying to solve was 
full of obscurities. Why had this sepulchre of the 
Popes, which on the faith of ancient documents he 
was obstinately seeking in the cemetery of St Calixtus, 
been transported thither ? How came it that the 
Bishops of Eome had chosen to rest elsewhere than 
beside St Peter, in the glorious crypt of the Vatican ? 
No one had been able to find the reason. Nor was this 
the only subject of uncertainty and doubt presented 
by the study which Signor Eossi had undertaken. 
From the very beginning of his explorations, he 
perceived that the cemetery of Calixtus is much 
more ancient than the name under which it is known 
led one to believe. The character of the paintings 
in the chambers and galleries first excavated ; the 
arrangement of the tombs, with the character of the 
inscriptions found in them, all recalled the second 
half of the second century. A still more decisive 
argument is, that the bricks used in their construc- 
tion and which, according to Eoman custom, bear the 



THE CATAGOMBS. 187 

maker's mark, were all made under Marcus Aurelius. 
These works are therefore anterior to Zephyrimus 
and Calixtus, who lived under Severus. Certain 
indications seemed to prove to Signor Eossi that 
this first hypogeum really belonged to the second 
century, and that it was given to the Church by 
a member of the illustrious family of the Csecilii. 
Why, then, did it not keep its first name, and how 
comes it that it bears that of Calixtus ? 

This is what we are beginning to know or foreshadow 
since the discovery and publication of a curious polemi- 
cal work, written in the third century by an unknown 
theologian, and called the Fhilosophumena. This work, 
which, until our day, had remained hidden in the 
library of a Greek convent, caused, on its appearance, 
intense surprise and great scandal. It certainly very 
much upset accepted opinions. Above all, it described 
the life of this Calixtus, whom the faithful made Pope, 
and whom, later on, the Church made a saint, in a very 
unexpected manner. If the unknown author of Philo- 
sophumena is to be credited, this Pope and saint was 
merely a former slave who entered into banking with 
the money of his master, Carpophorous, and whom the 
too credulous Christians charged to keep the revenues 
of the Church. He succeeded badly in his operations, 
and dissipated the money which had been confided to 
him. In order to dispense himself from rendering his 
accounts, and by an exploit to reconquer his popularity, 
which his financial disasters had shaken, he bethought 
himself to go and make a noise in the synagogue of the 
Jews, and disturb their ceremonies. Exiled to Sardinia 
for this act of intolerance, and afterwards recalled to 



188 ABCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Italy by the influence of Marcia, the mistress of Commodus, 
who protected the Christians, he became, it is not known 
how, the favourite and successor of Pope Zephyrinus. 
His character did not change with his fortune. He had 
been an unfaithful slave and a fraudulent banker : as 
Bishop of Eome, he was heretical, corrupt, simoniacal, 
'^and by his example taught adultery and murder." 
This is certainly a not very edifying history for a Pope 
and a saint; and, happily, it is not at all credible. 
Signor Eossi has no difficulty in showing that the 
violence of this libel weakens its authority,^ and that 
the accusations contained in it are entirely wanting in 
probability. The author himself is at pains to inform us 
that they are only an isolated protest, when he tells us 
that Calixtus has seduced everybody, and that he is alone 
in resisting him. But it is none the less certain that 
if, in writing for contemporaries, he perverted facts, he 
did not entirely imagine them. Signor Eossi thinks 
there must be truth at the bottom of the narrative, and 
that, for example, we must believe what it tells us of 
the origin of Calixtus and his first calling. So he was 
a former slave, and had long carried on banking on 
the Forum, Is it not significant that at this moment, 
scarcely two hundred years after the death of Christ, 
the Christian community of Eome, standing in need of 
a chief, should seek out an ex-banker ? This means 
that it had already become rich, and was beginning to 
have a care for its temporal interests. It was no longer 
enough for him who directed it to be capable of govern- 



^ He has specially studied this question in his Btdlettino di archeo- 
logia cristiana of 1866. 



THE CATACOMBS. 189 

ing souls ; he must also be capable of directing business. 
And it seems that, in choosing Calixtus, the Christians 
were not deceived. We gather from the involuntary 
avowals of the author of the Philosophumena that this 
Pope was a skilful organiser — a sort of liberal and 
enlightened man of State, who made useful regulations 
for the discipline of the Church. The people of Kome 
continued to remember his name long after the memory 
of his acts had been lost, and Signor Eossi rightly sees in 
this persistence a far-off remembrance of the great part 
which Calixtus had played. 

We find in this violent pamphlet a very singular 
expression, which attracted Signor Eossi's attention first 
of all. It is said that, when Zephyrinus had been 
named Bishop of Eome, he sent for Calixtus from 
Antium, whither he had been exiled since his return 
from Sardinia, and gave him charge of the cemetery. 
The cemetery on the Appian Way which has kept his 
name, is doubtless the one in question. But how must 
we explain this strange manner of designating it ? The 
Christians then possessed a great number. They had 
more ancient ones ; for example, that of Domitilla, 
dating from the first century. They had more celebrated 
ones — as the crypt of the Vatican, where the first Popes 
were interred. Why, then, is the one on the Appian 
Way called the cemetery, as if it were alone ? Signor 
Eossi, as we shall presently see, believes that the first 
hypogea possessed by the faithful were due to the 
liberality of some great lords converted to the new 
faith, and that, in the eyes of the law, they continued 
to be the property of the families who had conceded 
them ; but he supposes that, later, the Christians pro- 



190 AKCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

fited by the protection which the emperors accorded to 
funeral associations, and succeeded in becoming legiti- 
mate and recognised proprietors of their burying- 
grounds, like the otliers. It is then probable that the 
cemetery of the Appian Way was the first, and perhaps 
for some time the only one, that enjoyed this privilege. 
Thence we understand how the ancient hypogeum of 
the Cfficilii, enlarged, embellished, and placed on a 
par with its new fortunes, should have become, above 
all others, the cemetery, and how they should have 
become accustomed to give it the name of Calixtus, 
who doubtless directed the works. And this is also 
why all the Bishops of Eome, from Zephyrinus down- 
ward, were buried there. They preferred the cemetery 
of Calixtus to all others, because it was the first of 
which the State had assured them the possession ; they 
chose to be buried in the bosom of this earth which 
belonged to them, and in the domains of the Church. 

And Signer Eossi believed himself certain of finding 
this sepulchre where they rested. Since ancient 
itineraries mentioned it, and pilgrims of the seventh 
century came to pray there, he could not fail to find it 
some day or another. He, in fact, succeeded in doing so 
in the month of March 1854, after five years of seeking, 
and by applying his ordinary methods. A considerable 
mass of ruins near the Appian Way had attracted his 
notice. And, sure enough, there was one of the large 
wells, or lucernaria, which had been dug after Constan- 
tine's time, in order to give light to the Catacombs. 
The workmen penetrated by this well into a chamber 
of medium extent (3.54 in length by 4.50 in breadth), 
but which must have been decorated with great magni- 



THE CATACOMBS. 191 

ficence. Successive restorations had covered the walls 
with delicate paintings, and then with slabs of marble. 
Unhappily, Signer Eossi had been forestalled in his 
researches. Devastators had got in, it is not known 
when, had finished the ruin begun by time, and, in 
order to obtain the marble, had destroyed a part of the 
inscriptions. But they had been unable to take all. 
The crypt being half-full of heaped-up materials, they 
could not reach the ground, and there was hope that 
among the rubbish which filled it some discovery might 
be made. So they set courageously to work to clear 
it out. As the walls reappeared, they were found 
covered with those graffiti, which never fail in impor- 
tant crypts. As always, they were the work of pilgrims 
addressing the martyr whose tomb they were visiting, 
and asking him for a happy passage for them and their 
families {ut Verecundus cum suis bene navigd). But 
who could this saint be to whom their prayers were 
addressed ? It fortunately so happened that one of 
them had named him. In one of these inscriptions a 
name may be read, several times repeated : Sancte 
Suste libera .... Sancte Suste, in mente habeas, so 
that one of the greatest Popes of the third century 
was in question, beheaded in the Catacombs themselves, 
where he was celebrating the holy mysteries in spite of 
the Emperor's prohibition. They were therefore pro- 
bably in the papal crypt where St Systus was buried 
with his colleagues after his martyrdom. But it was 
necessary to find more certain proofs. Signer Eossi has 
related with what anxiety he followed the work of his 
labourers, searching the rubbish as it was brought out 
of the crypt, without passing over the slightest frag- 



192 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

ments. At last, by putting pieces of broken marble 
together, he succeeded in recomposing the inscriptions 
placed on the tombs of four Popes. These epitaphs are 
remarkable for their simplicity. They contain neither 
praise nor regret, only these words are read: Anieros 
hishop ; Eutychianus, bishop. On that of Fabian, 
another hand added, later on, the word " martyr." ^ 
No doubt was longer possible. All Signer Eossi's 
assertions found themselves confirmed by this brilliant 
discovery. It was indeed the papal crypt that had 
been found after fifteen centuries, and on the 11th 
May 1854, Pope Pius IX. came to visit the tomb of his 
distant predecessors. 



CHIEF RESULTS OF SIGNOR ROSSI S DISCOVERIES — HIS 
NEW OPINIONS ON THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES — THEY BEGIN BY BEING 
PRIVATE PROPERTY — AS SUCH THEY ARE UNDER 
THE PROTECTION OF THE LAW — HOW THEY EX- 
TENDED — HOW THEY BECAME THE PROPERTY OF 
THE CHURCH — FIRST RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH 
WITH THE CIVIL AUTHORITY — CHARACTER OF THESE 
RELATIONS — THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH AND THE GREAT 
FAMILIES — HOW ADVANTAGE MAY BE DRA^VN FROM 
THE ACTS OF THE MARTYRS. 

We now know how Signer Eossi proceeds in the 
excavations which he undertakes. Seeing him working 

1 Signer Rossi thinks he may conclude from this that the title of 
martyr was only granted after a deliberation of the Church, 



THE CATACOMBS. 193 

at St Calixtus, we understand his method. Instead of 
following him in the details of his other discoveries, I 
think it will be better, in finishing, to show the conse- 
quence which he drew from them. Of course, I do not 
pretend to enumerate all the obscure problems which 
he has solved ; I limit myself to the most important. 
I will simply recall some of the new ideas with which 
he has enriched history, and the definitive conquests 
which Christian archaeology owes to him. 

First of all he has explained, better than has been 
done before him, the origin of the Christian cemeteries, 
and the phases through which they have passed. In 
this connection he has changed received opinions, and 
illumined with a new light that delicate question, 
the relations of the rising Church to the civil power. 

In speaking of the Catacombs, underground places 
are usually imagined whose entrance is only known to a 
few initiated persons, and in which a proscribed religion 
carefully hides itself from its persecutors. This is an 
idea that must be got rid of — at least, as regards the two 
first centuries. It is now certain that, in the beginning, 
the Christians did not seek to conceal the existence of 
their cemeteries ; that the authorities knew of them ; and 
that until the persecution of Decius they never forbade 
access to them. 

In the year 1864 the entrance to one of the oldest 
cemeteries of Eome was discovered — that of Domitilla. 
It was located along one of the most frequented ways — 
the Via Ardeatina. The door opened directly upon 
the road, and above the pediment is found the place of 
an inscription, which has disappeared, but which, as 
usual, told to whom the hypogeum belonged. Beyond 



194 AKCH.SOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the vestibule, a long gallery opens, whose roof is 
adorned with graceful paintings, representing a vine, 
with birds and genii. On the wall is seen the trace of 
more important frescoes, in one of which the subject 
of Daniel in the den of lions, afterwards to become 
so popular, is represented. All this first storey rose 
above the ground : it struck the eyes of all ; it was 
impossible not to remark it. This is because the 
cemetery had at that time really nothing to hide. The 
person to whom it belonged, Domitilla or another, had 
a right to admit whom he chose to it. Have we not 
thousands of tombs whose owner tells us that he has 
built them for himself and his family, for his friends, 
for his freedmen and freedwomen, for those who form 
part of the same college ? We have one even where he 
expressly mentions the people who belong to the same 
religion as himself, as destined to share his sepulture 
{qui sint ad rdigionem pertinentes meam}) Signor Eossi, 
relying upon this usage, thinks that the Catacombs 
were originally the private tombs of rich Christians, 
and that instead of admitting their freedmen to them, 
they admitted their brethren. What lends sufficient 
probability to this opinion is the manner in which they 
are designated in the most ancient documents. They 
are usually called by a proper name, which is not that 
of martyrs or confessors buried in them. It is probably 
the name of the first proprietor of the tomb, of him 
who paid for the ground, and had the crypt constructed. 
Under these circumstances, it is easily conceivable that 
the construction of the first Catacombs should neither 

^ Rossi, Bull, di arch. crisL, 1865, No. 12. 



THE CATACOMBS. 195 

have caused any surprise in the pagan world nor have 
been opposed by the powers. Pious women, who from 
the very first were the most fervent adepts of the new 
worship, — Domitilla, Lucina, Commodilla ; rich and 
generous people like Calepodius, Pretextatus, or 
Thrason, had sumptuous tombs raised for themselves 
in advance ; nothing was more natural ; everybody did 
the same. They did not build them for themselves alone ; 
this was still a very common usage. They chose to rest 
there with those who shared their beliefs: this was 
more unusual, but not without example. This tomb, 
into which so many people were received, did not, 
therefore, the less belong to Thrason or to Com- 
modilla. It was still a private property, and, like 
others, was guaranteed by law. The respect of the 
Eomans for tombs is well known. The spot where any 
person was buried, even a stranger or a slave, at once 
became sacred (locus religiosus). The law took it under 
its protection, and defended it from all outrage. The 
Christians profited by this protection, like everybody 
else ; for there was no reason to deprive them of a 
common right. Even when, under JSTero and Domitian, 
authority persecuted them, it is not seen that the 
persecution was extended to their cemeteries. The 
Eoman law did not refuse sepulture to the criminals 
it had punished, and the tomb of a person who had 
been executed was as inviolable as the others. 

Yet let us add that, even under these circumstances, 
the Christians were only sure of escaping lawsuits and 
chicanery on condition that the surface of the ground 
in which they dug their cemeteries belonged to them. 
The inalienable possession of the upper earth was the 



196 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

guarantee of the inviolability of the underground tombs. 
The law which declared sacred the spot where a man 
was buried, not only protected the tomb, — it also 
included its dependencies. These were regarded as in- 
separable from the tomb itself, and they profited by its 
privileges. Under the head ground contiguous to the 
sepulchre {area cedens sepulchro), they became, like it, 
inalienable. Now, these dependencies were often very 
considerable. The sumptuousness of their tombs was 
the first luxury of rich people. They loved, first of all, 
to surround the monument where they were to repose 
with a rather extensive space, where they had various 
edifices built, and which was sometimes bordered with 
large trees. Behind these trees, orchard, vines, and 
gardens extended, and often, behind the gardens, cul- 
tivated fields. They took great care to mark on their 
epitaphs the exact extent of the soil, which at times 
was no less than three jugera. They said that they 
reserved it for themselves alone ; that they formally 
excepted it from their inheritance, and that they would 
not have it cut up or sold. If they had happened to 
have a vault constructed, they did not forget this cir- 
cumstance, and we see a certain number of funeral 
inscriptions expressly mentioned among the things of 
which the deceased reserves to himself the indefinite 
possession — the monument and its hypogcum {monu- 
mentum cum hypogm). 

These usages afforded the Christians the opportunity 
to acquire the land needed for their burying-grounds, 
however extensive it might be, without causing surprise 
to any one. They also gave them the hope of posses- 
sing them always, without fear of its falling into pro- 



THE CATACOMBS. 197 

fane hands. That they profited by them there can 
scarcely be a doubt. It may then be affirmed that, 
before constructing their crypts, they assured them- 
selves the possession of the upper soil ; that they made 
it, to use the consecrated term, " a ground contiguous 
to the sepulchre," and that, by some inscription which 
will perhaps be recovered, they placed the monument 
and its Tiypogeum under the guardianship of the law. 
Signer Kossi, in drawing up the plan of the different 
cemeteries, made an important observation. He 
remarks that, if reduced to their primitive elements, 
leaving out those works which are evidently posterior, 
only a few isolated groups remain, each of which forms 
a regular geometrical figure of slight extent. These 
respected limits, this anxious care taken to dig within 
a narrow space, instead of spreading at large, and this 
regularity of form which has been held to, are only 
satisfactorily explained by the assumption that in this 
underground work it has been sought not to overstep the 
bounds of a field possessed on the surface. Each of 
these groups is therefore the exact reproduction of that 
field, and they represent those little primitive hypogea 
given to the Church by rich protectors, or which it 
bought with its own funds. By transporting them, in 
thought, to the soil, and replacing the trees that were 
planted, and the funeral monuments that were built 
there, and by shutting them in with gravestones and 
walls, we may form some idea of those species of islets 
which the Christian cemeteries must have formed 
during the second century in the Eoman Campagna, 
between the properties of the rich and the tombs of 
the different religions. 



198 AllCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

The primitive Catacombs had therefore but very 
slight extent, but ere long they necessarily grew. In 
the first galleries that were constructed, the niches for 
the dead were broad and far from each other, and there 
was much room lost. The number of the faithful con- 
tinually augmenting, it soon became necessary to crowd 
the tombs and fill up the empty spaces. This means 
did not long suffice, and they were obliged to decide on 
the piercing of new galleries ; but, in order to respect 
the law, care was taken not to exceed the limits of the 
field possessed, and there were sometimes as many 
as five stages of galleries superposed in the same 
crypt. The first was 7 or 8 metres from the soil — 
the last attained a depth of 25 metres. These 
enlargements of course yielded a great deal of room. 
According to Signer Eossi's calculations, ground with a 
length of but 125 Eoman feet could furnish, with only 
three stories, nearly 700 metres of galleries. It must 
have sufficed the community of Christians for some 
time. Yet, as the number of the faithful constantly 
increased, it at length became absolutely necessary to 
leave the ancient boundary, which would contain no 
more dead. These small hypogca were often near 
together ; they pushed ramifications towards each other, 
and several of them, by joining, formed a cemetery. 
The cemeteries, therefore, are only the union of these 
originally isolated crypts, and if they have now such a 
large number of openings, it is because each crypt 
had its own, and kept it. Must we go further and 
believe with some of the learned that, later on, all these 
cemeteries united to compose a single underground 
Christendom ? One would fain suppose so, since the 



THE CATACOMBS. 199 

imagination would be pleased by the idea that the 
faithful, who, during their lifetime so ardently aspired 
to form but a single fold, at least attained to this after 
their death ; but it is impossible to believe it, since the 
nature of the soil opposed too many obstacles to such a 
union. The cemeteries are often separated one from 
the other by deep valleys and swamps, where the water 
collects after storms, and the galleries under these 
marshes would never have been practicable. The 
Christians well knew it, so they only constructed their 
cemeteries on the slopes of hills, and whatever desire 
we may suppose them to have to meet together after 
death, it is not possible to admit that they ever 
attempted to cross the valleys. After all, the Christian 
cemeteries, although separated one from the other, still 
present a unity of labours sufficiently grand to satisfy 
the most exigent of imaginations. 

It is thus that, little by little, these primitive hypogca 
which the Church owed to the generosity of a few 
Christians, increased in size. In a century they took 
such vast proportions that it became difficult to 
continue to treat them in the same way, and for the 
law still to consider them as the property of families 
who had ceded them to the faithful. In fact, Signer 
Eossi thinks that they then changed their position, and 
in support of this he relies upon the following con- 
siderations. He bids us remark that Constantine, in the 
edict of Milan, orders to be returned to the Christians 
" The properties belonging, not to individuals, but to the 
entire community " (ad jus coiyoris eorum non homimon 
singulorum 2^erti7ientia), and we know that the cemeteries 
formed part of those common properties which were 



200 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

restored to them. Before Constantine, therefore, the 
Church must have obtained from the Emperors the same 
privileges as the corporations recognised by the State, 
which had the right to possess property, and by this title 
have been the legitimate proprietor of its cemeteries. 
But at what point did it obtain this important right which 
the Emperors were so chary of granting ? Doubtless, 
before the period of Decius and Valerian, when it was the 
object of such cruel persecutions. Now, in the reign of 
Severus, a notable change took place in Eoman legis- 
lation, by which it seems natural that the Christians 
should have profited. The Empire, in the first and 
second centuries, was overspread with burying associa- 
tions {collegia funeraticia). These were societies which, 
in return for the payment of a moderate sum monthly, 
undertook to provide their members with a proper 
burial and decent obsequies. The success of them is 
explained by the fear then felt that the soul would be 
wandering and miserable in the other life if the body 
did not rest in a fixed sepulchre, or if it had not been 
interred according to the rites. The Emperors, who 
in general mistrusted societies, and vouchsafed them 
but scant toleration, made an exception for these. 
Perhaps, as they were exclusively composed of poor 
people, they seemed to them less to be feared, and they 
hoped to increase their popularity by taking them 
under their protection. A senatus consultuni authorised 
in advance all the burial societies that should be 
founded in the Empire, so that, in order to acquire legal 
existence, it was sufficient for them to get themselves 
inscribed under this heading in the registers of the 
magistrates. Once authorised, they had a right to 



THE CATACOMBS. 201 

possess a common exchequer, fed by the subscriptions of 
their members and the liberality of their protectors, 
and they could meet once a month for ordinary business, 
or as often as they chose, in order to celebrate the 
festivals of the association. It must be owned that this 
senatus consultum offered the Christians extraordinary 
facilities which must have greatly tempted them. It 
asked no sacrifice of their beliefs, it required no lie of 
them. This being so, Christians could well affirm that 
they also formed a "burial association," since they 
regarded it as their first duty to give an honourable 
sepulchre to their dead of every condition. In getting 
themselves recognised by the State, which coiild scarcely 
refuse them what it granted to every one, they not only 
became lawful proprietors of their cemeteries, but they 
acquired the right to meet together without being 
troubled, and to possess a common treasury. It was 
a great advantage ; TertuUian's manner of expressing 
himself, the terms he uses in speaking of Christian 
associations,^ and, still more, reason and good sense bid 
us believe that they would not voluntarily deprive them- 
selves of it. If, indeed, the Christian community got 
itself accepted by the State as one of those collegia 
fiLneraticia which covered the Empire, the Bishop must 
naturally have been regarded as the responsible chief of 
the society, and doubtless, passed in the eyes of the magis- 
trates for the president of the association. The deacon, 



^ Signer Rossi bids us remark that the expressions used by 
TertuUian in speaking of the quota collected each month in the 
assemblies of the Christians : Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua 
die opponit, recall the terms of the senatus consxdtum qui stipem 
menstruam conferre volcnt, etc. 



202 ARCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

who was charged with the administration of the ceme- 
tery, played the part of the person who, under the 
name of actor or syndicus, managed common properties. 
It follows that the name of the bishop and that of the 
deacon were known to the authorities, who doubtless 
had frequent intercourse with them. It was necessary 
to inform them when the Bishop was dead, and to give 
them the name of him who had been appointed in his 
place. Signer Eossi even thinks he has discovered, by 
certain indications, that some of the lists of the Popes 
possessed by us come, not from the archives of the 
Church, but from those of the prefecture of Eome, 
where they were preserved with care, and whither the 
copyists went to seek them, in order to be sure of 
having an authentic document. Here, then, is the 
State for the first time in relationship with the Church, 
which had hitherto escaped it. They will henceforth 
take the habit of working together, and will unite so 
strongly that they will think themselves no longer able 
to separate and live without each other. We have 
arrived at the moment when those bonds are formed 
which will soon become so close, but it must be owned 
that, if the Church thought to gain greater security and 
more rest by these relations, it was mistaken. This 
protection which it asked from the State, and which it 
was so glad to have obtained, brought it little and cost 
it dear. Henceforth the Emperors know it better and 
have their hand more directly upon it ; when they strike 
they will hit straight. Instead of deviating to the 
insignificant among the believers, they will unhesitat- 
ingly smite the chief of the community. They know 
his name and his abode, they seize him when they will, 



THE CATACOMBS. 203 

they exile or kill him according to their caprice, and, 
having got rid of him, they prevent another from being 
appointed. The position of the cemeteries is also 
changed. When they were a private property, and 
belonged, at least in appearance, to some great family, 
no one dared to touch them. But once become the 
common property of the Church, they followed its 
destiny. They were seized by the agents of the fiscus, 
pillaged by the soldiers of the Emperor, and the 
Christians were often obliged to destroy and fill them 
up themselves in order to save them from the ravages 
of the enemy. 

Signer Eossi's manner of explaining the origin of the 
Catacombs and their legal position has the advantage 
of explaining facts which till now seemed very obscure. 
It was not understood how the Christians could 
accomplish such great works in their cemeteries, 
introduce their workmen to dig the galleries and 
take out the rubbish from them, without arousing 
the attention of the imperial police. Our surprise 
ceases from the moment we know that they did it quite 
openly, and with the assent of the authorities. This 
theory also allows of a better explanation, than was 
formerly the case, of the alternations which the Church 
passed through during the first two centuries. Its 
position was then a double one, and it was possible to 
be indulgent or severe towards it, according to the side 
from which it was regarded. As a new religion, it was 
to be interdicted. The law was precise, and forbade 
all foreign religions that had not been accepted by a 
decree of the Senate, but as " a funeral association " 
it was authorised. Hence a kind of hesitation of the 



204 ARCHiOilOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

authorities in their dealings with the Church, and the 
vicissitudes through which they caused it to pass. 
From time to time popular fury, always excited against 
the Christians, leads the magistrates of cities, the 
governors of provinces, and the Emperor himself to 
persecute the people who preach a new god. They 
had the legal right to do so, and, whatever apologists 
may say, the prosecutions are regular and lawful. But 
this effervescence of anger once calmed down, the rigours 
cease. It is affected no longer to regard the corpora- 
tion of the "brethren," the adorers of the Word, as 
anything but one of those societies, half religious and 
half civil (cultores Jovis, culiores Diancc, etc.) which 
have been instituted to give sepulture to their members, 
and they are allowed the same tolerance that is granted 
to others. 

Signer Eossi bids us remark that this tolerance was 
rendered more easy by the care taken by the Church 
not to offend common usages when it found nothing to 
reprove in them, and to conform itself as much as 
possible to the customs of the ordinary associations. 
A pagan, who, in passing along the Via Ardcatina had 
been tempted to visit the cemetery of Domitilla, would 
have found nothing there to surprise him so much as 
we are inclined to believe. The charming arabesques 
adorning the roof of the entrance corridor, those vine 
branches so gracefully intertwined, those vintage 
scenes, and, elsewhere, those birds and those winged 
genii fluttering about in empty space, would have 
recalled to him what he had before his eyes every day 
in the apartments of rich people. The epitaphs, if he 
stopped to read them, might doubtless appear different 



THE CATACOMBS. 205 

enough from usual inscriptions; yet they contained 
hardly anything that might not be found elsewhere. 
Even the wishes, " Peace and refreshment," which seem 
to us the most original part of them, are borrowed 
from certain Oriental creeds that had been long since 
acclimatized in Eome. The Christian obsequies, too, 
at first sight, and to a hurried observer, must have 
greatly resembled others. Prudentius says that they 
bestrewed the tomb with leaves and flowers, and that 
they poured libations of perfumed wine upon the 
marble. Above all, the custom of celebrating funeral 
anniversaries by banquets had been preserved. Beside 
the entrance to the cemetery of Domitilla, the dining- 
room is still found, where the brothers met to celebrate 
the memory of their dead. Signer Eossi shows, by 
curious examples, how given they were to reproduce, 
at least to outward appearance, what passed in the 
triclinia of other associations ; so that a pagan, as- 
sisting at these repasts, would have thought himself 
in one of those fine burial places possessed by great 
families and important associations along the Appian 
or the Latin "Way. Other historians have been chiefly 
struck by the radical differences which separated 
Christianity from the different religions in the midst of 
which it established itself. Signor Eossi shows us the 
chance or intentional resemblances which it had to 
them. These resemblances made the transition from 
one religion to the other the more easy, which was 
doubtless not without profit to the rapid propagation 
of Christianity. 

Another advantage of the explanations given by 
Signor Eossi is, that they enable us better to under- 



206 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

stand the relations of the tirst Christians to the 
authorities. People are fond of picturing Christianity 
to themselves as a kind of uncompromising sect which 
held civil society in horror, and would at no cost have 
anything to do with it; but there is a great deal of 
exaggeration in this opinion. The Church, on the 
contrary, during the first three centuries, made many 
efforts to live at peace w"ith the ruling powers. Instead 
of putting itself in open revolt against tlie laws, it tried 
to benefit by those which were favourable to it, and even 
to gain admission to the class of the regular institutions 
of the Empire. These facts do not surprise us; we 
might have suspected them ; but we had no such 
evident proofs as those which Signer Eossi gives us. 
Christianity is known to have been one of the rare 
Jewish sects of its age that were not at the same time 
a political insurrection and a religious reform. It 
declared from the very beginning that it could ac- 
commodate itself to all governments and live in all 
surroundings. Its founder preached submission to 
Ctesar in a country trembling with excitement and 
already almost in a state of rebellion. The Apostles, 
faithful to the doctrine of the Master, require obedience 
to all raised in authority. St Paul, in particular, seems 
to have taken much pains in order that the new religion 
might succeed in living with the old society. He does 
not choose that it should bring any dissension into 
the family or into the State ; he forbids Christians who 
have infidel wives to separate from them, and he 
commands them to remain in the same position in 
which they were when they were called, and to main- 
tain themselves in it before the Lord. His principle 



THE CATACOMBS. 207 

concerns the slave as well as the free man. They 
must all respect the social hierarchy, and render unto 
each his due. " Tribute to whom tribute is due, fear 
to whom fear ! " They must, above all, be submissive 
to the prince, " who is the minister of God to favour 
the faithful in good." The Christians afterwards rigor- 
ously carried out these precepts of the Apostle. Even 
the persecutions themselves did not make rebels of 
them. In spite of the cruel manner in which they 
were treated, and which could not have disposed them 
to submission, we do not find them anywhere openly 
mixed up in the troubles of the Empire. Tertullian 
says that they prayed for the Emperor who persecuted 
them, and asked God to give him "a long life, a 
respected power, a happy family, valiant armies, a faith- 
ful Senate, an obedient people, and the repose of the 
universe." Signer Eossi renders these dispositions of the 
Christian community more evident, and makes us better 
understand the care which it took to avoid all conflicts 
and put itself straight with the powers, when he en- 
deavours to prove that it profited by the privileges 
granted by the Empire to popular associations, and that 
it must have got itself authorized like other funeral 
associations, and kept up regular intercourse with the 
prefecture of Eome.^ 

He also introduced, in the history of the origin of 
Christianity, other opinions which were not quite ac- 

1 Apro2'>os of the money which some churches cousented to pay, in 
order to avoid the persecutions, Tertullian confirms that the Christians 
were on the registers of the police, and were there in very bad com- 
pany : Inter tabernarios et lanios etfures balneorum et alcones et lenones 
christiani quoquevectigalescontinentur. — Defugainpers., XII. andXIII. 



208 ARCH.'EOLOGICAL UAMRLES. 

credited before his time, and which I will content myself 
with rapidly pointing out. It has been often said 
that Christianity at first only spread among the wretched 
classes. It was poor Jews and " little Greeks," freed- 
men and slaves, weavers, shoemakers, and fullers, who 
were its first converts. From the height of his rich 
philosophy Celse laughed much at this mob of souls, 
simple and ignorant, of minds narrow and unculti- 
vated, for whom the Christian doctors mounted their 
pulpits. It cannot, indeed, be denied that poor people 
were for a long time the most numerous among the 
faithful; but did the Church consist exclusively of 
them, even in the first years ? Signer Eossi thinks not. 
He was struck to see that the most ancient Catacombs 
are also the richest and best ornamented. He asks 
himself whether it was possible for a corporation con- 
taining only " weavers and shoemakers " to produce 
the vestibule of the cemetery of Domitilla, with the 
elegant paintings that decorate the roof ? And it at 
once occurs to him that, among those slaves, those 
freedmen, and those workmen, there must have been 
more important and more opulent personages who bore 
the expense of these buildings. This, however, is only 
what happened in the poorer associations, which took 
great care to choose protectors to help them with their 
influence and their fortune. Is it not likely that some- 
thing of the kind existed in the association of the 
brethren ? The excavations have seemed to confirm 
these suppositions. On the tombs discovered by him, 
Signer Eossi has occasionally read the most glorious 
names of ancient Eome — the Cornelii, the ^milii, the 
Ccecillii, etc. He concludes that some members of 



THE CATACOMBS. 209 

these great families very early knew and practised the 
new doctrine. Preached by St Paul "in the house 
of Cffisar," that is to say, among the Eastern slaves 
and freedmen of the prince, it had about the same 
time won over the noble Pomponia Gr^cina, wife of 
the Consul Plautius, the conqueror of Britain. She was 
accused, under Nero, of "foreign superstition," which 
could then only mean Judaism or Christianity, and 
as her descendants have been found in the cemetery 
of Calixtus, we may with much probability suppose 
that she was indeed a Christian. Some years later, 
the new faith made its way into the very family of 
the Emperors, if it be true, as there is every kind 
of reason to believe, that Domitilla and her husband 
Flavins Clemens, the nearest relations of Domitian 
and of Titus, were Christians, like Pomponia Gracina. 
Clemens and Domitilla could not have been alone 
for an example in such high quarters is rarely un- 
imitated by other personages. So it may be sup- 
posed that Christianity, even in its first years, made 
some important conquests among the aristocracy of 
birth and money which governed the Empire. Those 
great personages which it drew to it must, in the first 
place, have helped it by their position, and perhaps they 
more than once stopped the blows that were being pre- 
pared for it, like that Marcia, mistress of Commodus, 
" who feared the Lord," and protected the bishops. Above 
all, they must, by their liberalities, have enriched the 
common chest, which, from the period of the Antonines, 
was so important, and soon allowed the Church of 
Eome to extend its alms over nearly the whole world. 
The Catacombs have already revealed to us the names 





210 ARCHAEOLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

of some of those great lords who early became Chris- 
tians, and when there was peril in so doing, and they 
will doubtless acquaint us with many others. They were 
perhaps a somewhat feeble element in that budding 
society, but one that must be taken into account. If 
we neglect it, it is less easy to understand how Chris- 
tianity sustained the attacks of its enemies, and 
succeeded in vanquishing them. 

Another question, perhaps more important yet, 
which is far from being settled, but which the study 
of the Catacombs has made a little clearer, is that 
of the amount of confidence deserved by the " Lives of 
the Saints" and the "Acts of the Martyrs." These 
documents are much discredited, not only among 
sceptics, but among pious people, like Tillemont, 
when they do not think that devotion renders absten- 
tion from criticism a duty. In the form that they 
have reached us, they deserve very little credence. 
In the centuries following the peace of the Church 
ridiculous legends got mixed up with them. "When 
read on the feasts of the saints for the edification 
of the faithful, anything that could strike the imagina- 
tion or touch the heart was added without scruple. 
Ehetoric, above all — the bad rhetoric of the seventh 
and eighth centuries — has quite spoilt them. Yet it 
must be owned that wliatever distrust they may 
awaken, they must not, after the excavation of the 
Catacombs, be any longer rejected without examina- 
tion. All in these narratives is not imaginary, since 
the graves of those whose ' history they narrate 
have been found in the galleries of the cemeteries. 
So, in the fourth century, their tombs were really 



THE CATACOMBS. 211 

believed to be extant ; their names were read on their 
epitaphs, and people came to pray before their remains. 
The account of the facts may be very legendary, but 
it is difficult to doubt the reality of the names of 
the personages. Even in these very narratives, in 
the midst of many ridiculous errors, probable or 
certain details are remarked. Some are confirmed by 
the ancient inscriptions or paintings in the Catacombs ; 
others imply a perfect knowledge of places which 
people of the eighth or ninth centuries certainly 
visited no longer. Signor Eossi very legitimately 
concludes from this, that the new, amplified and 
corrupted edition supposes the existence of an 
edition more ancient, more sober, and more truthful. 
So he is of opinion that, instead of rejecting the 
whole narrative on account of a few absurdities con- 
tained in it, we should strip it of all these lamentable 
accretions, and try to find the original truth under 
the sophisticated copy. It is delicate work, into which 
there always enters a little divination and hypothesis, 
yet one not impossible to a practised criticism, and 
which is accomplished every day in the restitution 
of classic texts. Signor Rossi has done it very cleverly 
for the " Acts of St Cecilia," and M. Le Blant is 
attempting it for many others. If, as is scarcely 
doubtful, the undertaking succeeds, it will greatly 
increase the number of documents at our disposal, and 
make us better acquainted with the heroic struggle 
sustained by the Church against its persecutors. We 
shall perhaps thereby gain a few additional martyrs, 
but this does not appear to me so very great an evil. 
I must own that I have never been able to under- 



212 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

stand the animosity with which historians of the 
eighteenth century systematically denied the persecu- 
tions, or sought to attenuate their effects. Voltaire, in 
treating the martyrs as enemies, did not perceive 
that he struck at allies. The men whom he pursued 
with his implacable railleries defended tolerance like 
himself. They proclaimed, like him, that no human 
power can touch the independence of the soul. 

Come, tormentor," Prudentius makes a Christian girl 
say, " burn and tear ! Divide the members formed of 
dust ! " 'Tis easy for thee to destroy this frail assem- 
blage. As for my soul, in spite of all thy tortures, 
thou shalt not reach it." ^ And, indeed, they did not 
reach it. Executions were useless, and Christianity 
gave the world the most moral of all spectacles, — that 
of the powerlessness of force. 

The Church is indeed right to honour the memories 
of those who died for her, and to glory in their 
courage ; but they are not the only heroes of a 
particular opinion. All those who think, like them, 
that belief must be free, and that a religion has 
not the right to impose itself by force, may shelter 
themselves under their name. It is therefore by no 
means to our interest to limit the number of the 
martyrs or to contest their merits ; nor is it to our 
purpose to throw a shadow over that heroic epoch 
which gave so great an example to the world, and 
those who, like Signor Eossi, seek to make us better 
acquainted with it, whatever their personal con- 
victions may be, have a right to the sympathies of 

iPrudeutius, Fcrist., III. 90, 



THE CATACOMBS. 213 

all. We should earnestly hope that the excavations 
directed by him will always be as productive, and 
that he will have time to finish this work, so 
valiantly begun. Were he to give us a few more 
saints and confessors than were acknowledged by 
Tillemont, we should have no reason to complain. 
By multiplying the victims he renders the executions 
more hateful ; makes us the more detest that insolent 
intervention of force, which pretends to rule and 
regulate faith, and causes us to be more attached to 
those precious treasures conquered at the price of so 
many sufferings — Tolerance and Liberty. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

HADRIAN 'S VILLA. 

No one who sojourns for any length of time in Eome 
fails to go and see Tivoli : the Cascatelle and the 
Temple of the Sibyl are almost as well known as the 
Colosseum or the Pantheon. Yet very few consent to 
turn aside for a moment from the accustomed track, 
to visit on their way what remains of the Tiburtine 
villa built by the Emperor Hadrian. Nevertheless, it 
is an excursion worth making, and one which can teach 
much to the lovers of antiquity. The monuments of 
Eome enable us to behold the Caesars in the exercise 
of their sovereign functions, and preserve the memory 
of their official life. Hadrian's villa shows them to 
us during those moments of distraction and repose, 
which must needs be taken from time to time when 
one has the world to govern. It may also give us some 
precious hints as to their notions respecting the 
pleasures of the country, and inform us how that society 
understood and enjoyed nature — a subject well de- 
serving of a moment's study. 

On our way from Eome to Tivoli, we first pass, in all 



216 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

its length, that desolate Campagna by which the Eternal 
City is on every side surrounded. After five or six 
leagues of veritable desert, where nothing is met with 
but a few wretched osterie, and herds of oxen or horses 
grazing on the scant grass, the ground begins to rise. 
Some clumps of trees announce the approach of the 
Anio, which we pass by the j^o^itc Zucano. At this 
spot an ancient ruin of great interest rises, the tomb of 
the Plautian family. Here lies buried the Consul 
Ti. Plautius Silvanus, one of those brave officers and 
intelligent administrators who maintained the honour 
of the Empire under the worst princes, and were the 
salvation of Eome. The inscription placed on the 
mausoleum contains the account of his services, and 
the enumeration of the honours obtained by him. 
Under Tiberius, he commanded a legion of the army 
of Germany : he accompanied Claudius in the expedi- 
tion to Britain, under Nero : he governed Msesia, one 
of the provinces most threatened by the barbarians. 
The inscription relates how he stopped an insurrection 
of the Sarmatians, obliging the hostile kings to cross 
the Danube and come to his camp and bow down before 
the Eoman eagles. These services met with but scant 
requital until the day when Vespasian, himself an old 
soldier, set to work to make good to his comrades the 
injustices of preceding reigns. He recalled Silvanus 
from his province, had him granted the triumphal 
decorations, and named him prefect of Eome. 

From the tomb of Silvanus the road divides. To 
the left it enters those delightful olive woods that lead 
to Tivoli ; to the right it crosses the plain, and brings 
one in twenty minutes to Hadrian's villa. 



Hadrian's villa. 217 

To-day that villa is little more than a heap of ruins 
Over an extent of several kilometres nothing is met 
with but immense substructions, shafts of columns 
great scattered blocks, with here and there some 
fragments of wall still upright. These ruins are so 
considerable that they were for a long time taken for 
the remains of a town. It was imagined that Tibur 
before climbing the hill, had been built in the plain' 
and that here one had the last vestiges of the ancient 
city before one's eyes. So in the country round about 
they had received the name of Tivoli veccMo. It was 
easy to show this to be a mistake: the testimony of 
ancient authors and the inscriptions on tiles proved 
that It was Hadrian's villa. This country-house, con- 
sidered as a wonder by contemporaries, and which was 
the favourite creation of an Emperor friendly to the 
arts, does not appear to have been much dwelt in by 
his successors. History, at least, says nothing about it 
and scarcely anything has been found in these ruins 
attributable to another epoch. It has therefore had 
the rare good fortune not to have, been too much 
modified, and to have passed through the centuries 
bearing the special mark of the prince who built it and 
of the epoch in which it was raised. The riches of all 
kinds found in the rubbish led to the supposition that 
It had not been pillaged so long as the Empire lasted • 
yet It must doubtless have greatly suffered when Totila 
ravaged the environs of Tibur, took the town by 
assault, and massacred its inhabitants. From that 
moment, its fate was sealed. The great halls fell in 
the plough passed over the avenues, and the oardens 
became cornfields. Nevertheless, in the fifteenth cen- 



218 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

tuiy, important ruins still remained. The illustrious 
Pope Pius II., who visited it, speaks admiringly of the 
vaults of the temples, of the columns of the peristyles, 
of the porticoes, and of the 'piscinm, which could still he 
distinguished. "Age deforms all things sadly," he 
added. "The ivy climbs to-day along these walls, 
covered of yore with paintings and with golden stuffs ; 
brambles and thorns grow where sat the tribunes clad 
in purple, and snakes inhabit the chambers of the 
prmcipes. Such is the fortune of mortal things ! " 
Even these ruins themselves were fated to disappear. 
To Hadrian's villa, as to most ancient monuments, the 
Eenaissance was more fatal than barbarism. During 
the Middle Ages it had been allowed to decay ; from 
the sixteenth century it was systematically destroyed. 
According to custom, excavations were made to search 
for the statues, the mosaics, and the paintings which it 
might contain, and in these hunts the walls that 
still remained standing finally fell in. Unfortunately 
for it, Hadrian's villa turned out to be much richer in 
such things than all the other ruins that had been 
excavated. It became for three centuries a kind of 
inexhaustible mine which furnished masterpieces to 
all the museums of the world. Thence, for example, 
came the Faun in rosso antico, the Centaurs in grey 
marble, and the Harpocrates of the Capitol ; the Muses 
and the Flora of the Vatican, the bas-relief of AntinoUs 
of the villa Albani, and the admirable mosaic of the 
doves, so often reproduced by modern art. Of course, 
an edifice whence so many marvels were drawn was 
more conscientiously devastated than all the others. 
The pillage lasted down to our days, and, only a few 



Hadrian's villa. 219 

years since, the Braschi family, who possessed a part 
of the ground, made over the right to exploit these 
ruins to a company, and how the company, who 
wished to recoup itself as soon as possible, went to 
work, may be imagined. Happily, the Government has 
put an end to this scandal by purchasing the villa 
Braschi. 

In the state into which all these devastations have 
made it, Hadrian's villa is, for most visitors, a riddle, and 
if archaeologists and architects did not come to our aid, 
it would be extremely difficult for us to find our way 
among these heaped-up ruins. Archaeology has long 
been working to find out the destination of these blocks 
of stone and these masses of bricks, and to give us a 
plan more or less exact of the imperial dwelling. The 
first who busied himself with some success to this end 
was a Neapolitan architect of the fifteenth century, the 
famous Pirro Ligorio, the same who made himself so 
bad a reputation among the epigraphists by inventing 
entire volumes of false inscriptions. This great forger 
was certainly a very clever man. In his works on 
Hadrian's villa, he gave proof of great sagacity, and 
most of his conjectures have been adopted by the 
scholars who followed him. Piranesi and Canina have 
done little else than develop his views and exaggerate 
his errors. Mbby, who came after, contented himself 
with choosing the most plausible opinions set forth by 
others before him, and supporting them by his know- 
ledge of texts and great experience of antiquities. The 
interesting book published by him in the year 1827, 
under the title Bescrizione delta villa Adriana^ might 

^ Essai de restauration de la villa d' Hadrian. 



220 ARCH.^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

have passed for the last word that science had to say on 
the subject, when new studies were undertaken by one 

of the most distinguished architects of the French school 
at Eome. M. PaumeL In order to be more sure of the 
accuracy of his work, M. Daimiet begim by circum- 
scribing it He only busied himself with a portion of 
the villa — that which was known as the imperial palace. 
It offers many difficulties for solution, but also preserves 
the most curious remains. M. Daumet studied its least 
fragments with the greatest care ; made excavations, 
when allowed to do so, endeavoured to ascertain the 
meaning of the smallest layers of stone, and put back 
in their places all the pieces of marble ornament or 
mosaic that he could find. The result of aU these 
labours was a restoration essay on Hadrian's villa, con- 
sidered one of the best and most complete works of the 
school at Eome, The excavations made since IS 70, 
which have been very incomplete and intermittent^ have 
sometimes confirmed M. Daumet's opinions and some- 
times contradicted them. The work is far from being 
complete, and claims the expenditure of much additional 
time and effort, but. while awaiting its completion and 
the entire clearing of these ruins, it is, I tliink, useful 
to give an idea of what the works, carried out for three 
centuries past by dL^tinguished archi^eologists and archi- 
tects, have taught us most worthy of belief concerning 
this great curiosity of the past. 



hadi'jan's villa. 221 

I. 

THE EMPEROR HADRIAN — THE DIFFEIiENT JUDGMENTS 
PASSED ON HIM — THE PRINCE AND THE MAN — THE 
REASONS WHY HE WAS NOT LOVED — HIS LIKING 
FOR THE GREEKS — TRAVELLING IN ANCIENT TIMES 
— itadrlan's JOURNEYINGS. 

Hadrian's villa has the peculiar characteristic of being 
the work and the personal concejjtion of a man who 
was one of the most curious figures of his time : it was 
horn of certain circumstances of his life, and bears 
everywhere the impress of his mind. We can only 
hope to understand it by first becoming acquainted 
with him who caused it to be built. We must there- 
fore study the artist before the work, and strive to 
know both what he was and how the thought occurred 
to him to construct this country house, which filled all 
his contemporaries with wonder. 

The Emperor Hadrian was descended from an Italian 
family that had been for a long time settled in Spain. 
His birth did not seem to predestine him for the Empire. 
He was half-cousin to Trajan who, after much hesita- 
tion, ended by adopting him on his death-bed. It was 
singularly fortunate for the Eoman Empire that ISTerva 
and the three princes who came after him were without 
male heirs, and were obliged to provide themselves suc- 
cessors by adoption. This absence of direct heredity 
is usually regarded in monarchies as the greatest of 
misfortunes, and it is now a principle adopted by all 
that, in order to insure the security of states, it is good 
for the son to succeed his father. The liomans had 



222 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

very different ideas, and even under the Empire pre- 
served the remains of republican prejudices which 
rendered them little favourable to hereditary royalty. 
Their experience of it under the Cffisars and the Flavii 
had not reconciled them to it. After the fall of 
Domitian, they declared that they would not be the 
heritage of a family. " It appeared to them better for a 
prince to elect his successor than for him to be received 
at the hands of nature." " To be born of royal blood," 
said Tacitus, " is a chance before which all examination 
stops. On the contrary, he who adopts is judge of what 
he does ; if he desires to choose the most worthy, 
he has only to listen to the public voice." ^ What is 
certain is that adoption gave the world a succession of 
four great princes, and that Eome was quite happy 
until the day when Marcus Aurelius was so ill-fated as 
to have a son and leave him the Empire. 

I have just unhesitatingly put Hadrian among the 
great emperors, beside Trajan and Marcus Aurelius," but 
this is not, however, the opinion of all historians. His 
reputation is not one of those concerning which perfect 
agreement has been arrived at, and there are great 
differences in the manner of judging him. These 
difficulties go back very far — to the very epoch in 
which Hadrian lived, and his contemporaries probably 
agreed no better concerning him than we do. Dion 
and Spartianus, the clironiclers who have related his life, 
speak of him in a very odd manner. They at the same 
time say a great deal of good and of bad of him, so that 
tlie means of attacking or defending him may both be 

1 Tacitus, Hist., I, 16. 



hadman's villa. 223 

drawn from their works. This is because he was really 
a very complicated being — varius, multiplex, multiformis) 
says his historian, gentle or severe, according to the 
occasion, economical and prodigal by turns, jocose or 
grave, a good-natured friend or a cruel railler. His life 
contained contrasts which could not be explained- 
Although an excellent general, he detested war, and 
always avoided it. He passed his time in exercising his 
legions, that were never to be led before the enemy. 
This scholar, this artist, this squeamish exquisite, did 
not hesitate when needful to enter into the most trivial 
details of common business, and the effeminate fop, who 
made little verses on tooth-powder, was capable of the 
most energetic resolutions. He had sumptuous palaces 
built for him, in which all the elegancies of luxury 
and all the refinements of comfort had been brought 
together, yet he willingly lived in a tent, satisfied with 
bacon and cheese, like the common soldiers, drinking only 
vinegar mixed with water, and marching bareheaded at 
the head of his troops, amid the snows of Britain and 
under the Egyptian sun. It is easy to understand that 
these contrasts should have troubled chroniclers not 
endowed with a very perspicacious mind, and that, in 
the presence of a prince in whom contrary qualities 
seemed to unite, they should have swayed undecidedly 
between opposite opinions, unable to take upon them- 
selves to give us a precise idea of him. 

What stands out most clearly in their accounts is that 
there were in Hadrian two personages who did not 
always agree very well together — the man and the 
emperor. The emperor only deserves praise, and may 
be placed among the greatest and the best : the man, on 



224 AKCH^.OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

the contrary, was often unpleasant and petty. Con- 
temporaries, who were placed too near, and did not 
always know how properly to distinguish, sometimes by 
their unjust judgments made the prince pay for the 
caprices and weaknesses of the man. 

They were assuredly wrong, and all their gossip must 
not prevent us from believing Hadrian to have been a 
great prince. If any doubt still remained on this point, 
I should appeal to the brilliant picture of his reign 
recently drawn by M. Duruy.^ The services of every 
kind rendered by Hadrian to the Empire are eminent 
and incontestable. He first gave his states external 
security, and, in order to maintain the discipline of the 
armies, he made regulations so wide that no need was 
ever found to change anything in them, and they lasted 
as long as the Eoman domination. He strengthened the 
frontiers by garrisoning them with troops and by fur- 
nishing them with formidable retrenchments, thus 
shutting the door against the barbarians, who were 
becoming more formidable every day. Within this belt 
of ramparts, of fortresses, of deep dykes and of en- 
trenched camps, skilfully disposed along its immense 

^ In the third volume of his Histoire des llomains. I am happy to 
refer the reader to this work, in which M. Duruy, returning to the 
labours of his youth, after a long interval and important services 
rendered to the country, sketches, in a manner at once learned and 
lively, the history of the Empire. Even when he does not succeed 
in quite converting the reader to his ideas, he still knows how to 
interest and instruct him. M. Renan, in the sixth volume of his 
Histoire des origines die christianisme, also speaks of Hadrian. He 
does not dissimilate his faults, but he at the same time gives pro- 
minence to his great qualities, and has traced of the prince one of 
those portraits which are not forgotten. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 225 

frontiers, the Empire could breathe in peace. Inside, 
tranquillity was maintained with a firm hand, abuses 
reformed, legislation softened, and a great impetus 
everywhere given to public works. Under this vigor- 
ous impulsion, and, thanks to the peace enjoyed by the 
world, the towns would adorn themselves with those 
splendid monuments which still excite our admiration. 
Thus much is undeniable. Hadrian was certainly one 
of the most able administrators that had governed the 
world since Augustus, and he perhaps contributed, 
more than anybody, to that incredible development of 
the public prosperity which made the century of the 
Antonines one of the happiest periods of humanity. 
"When the glory of princes is measured by the 
happiness they have given their peoples," says M. 
Duruy, " Hadrian will be first of the Eomau 
Emperors." 

How comes it that, having served the Empire so 
well, he was so unfavourably judged ? These severities 
of opinion are usually explained by recalling the per- 
sistent bad humour with which the great families and 
the Senate regarded the imperial rule ; but this is truly 
a somewhat too convenient means of justifying all the 
Caesars without distinction, and, even if such reasons 
might still serve for the period of Nero and Tiberius, it 
seems to me scarcely possible to continue to use them 
when we get to the Antonines. The Empire had then 
long since been excepted by all. Time had wakened 
old republican rumours, and, at any rate, it can scarcely 
be understood how, after Trajan had been spared them, 
they should have been resuscitated against Hadrian. 
If Hadrian, with all his great qualities, could not make 



226 AKCH.EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

himself better loved, we must think it his own fault, and 
that there was in his person and in his character some- 
thing which estranged hearts from him. So Fronto, 
who was a rather bad writer, but a very good sort of a 
man, and the most submissive of subjects, later on gave 
Marcus Aurelius to understand, with an infinity of 
delicate precaution. " In order to love anybody," he 
said, " we must be able to approach him with confidence, 
and feel at our ease with him. This is what didn't 
happen to me with Hadrian. Confidence failed me, and 
the very respect with which I was inspired repelled 
affection."^ We may see all that is hidden beneath 
those polite words. Neither does Trajan, although his 
kinsman, seem to have felt any great attraction towards 
him. Yet we know that Hadrian, who expected every- 
thing at his hands, neglected nothing in order to please 
him. He sought to flatter his tastes in every way, even 
the least honourable, and he himself relates that, know- 
ing him to be a hardened drinker, he set himself to 
drink, in order by this means to get into his good 
graces. Moreover, he had other qualities to which 
Trajan attached the highest importance. A devoted 
soldier, an exact lieutenant, a skilful organizer, a scru- 
pulous administrator, he accomplished carefully and 
with success all the missions with which he was charged. 
Yet his advancement was not very rapid. An inscrip- 
tion, found in the theatre of Athens, shows that he went 
through the whole hierarchy of public dignities, step by 
step, without being spared a single grade. In spite of 
his acknowledged merits and the services rendered by 



1 Fronto, Ad. M. Cobs., II. 1 (p. .25, Naber). 



hadkian's villa. 227 

him, Trajan waited until his last day before adopting 
him. It is even pretended that death forestalled him 
before he had come to a decision ; that the adoption was 
only a comedy scene, imagined in order to deceive the 
world, and that a man concealed behind the hangings 
murmured a few words in a dying voice, in place of 
the deceased Emperor. What might give some pro- 
bability to such a tale is Trajan's apparently slight 
alacrity to accept him as his heir. Not only did he 
not associate him in the Empire during his lifetime, 
as Nerva had done for himself, but he would not confer 
upon him any of those exceptioual honours which would 
have designated him in advance as his successor. May 
it not hence be concluded, that, while appreciating in 
him the administrator and the soldier, he felt for the 
man a sort of repugnance, which he had difficulty in 
overcoming ? 

Once Emperor, Hadrian had many friends ; it is not 
difficult to have them when one is master of the world. 
He was very liberal towards them. " Never," says 
Spartianus, " did he refuse what they asked, and he 
often even forestalled their desires," but, at the same 
time, he irritated them by his railleries and wounded 
them by his suspicions. Unequal and fantastic as an 
artist, easily set against those who were attached to 
him, he listened to what was said against them, and 
often had them watched. He had his secret police, who 
penetrated into families and reported to him what it had 
heard said. No friendship whatsoever is proof against 
such mistrust. Spartianus remarks that those whom 
he had best loved and most loaded with honours all 
ended by becoming hateful to him. Several were sent 



228 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

away from Eome, others lost their fortunes, and there 
were some among them whose lives were taken. I do not 
believe that Hadrian was by nature cruel, and he even 
gave some fine examples of clemency. But it has been 
said that the sovereign power, devoid of any precise char- 
acter and without fixed limit, would trouble the best 
heads. Few princes have quite escaped the intoxication 
of authority — that giddiness produced at once by pride 
and fear, which influenced bad instincts and perverted 
their souls. Honest Mark Aurelius one day said to him- 
self in a tone of terror : '' Become not too much Csesar." 
We are forced to believe that Hadrian occasionally 
became so, in spite of himself. At the beginning of 
his reign, ere yet he felt himself firmly settled, he shed, 
or caused to be shed, the blood of some great personages 
accused of treason. He shed it again at the end of his 
life, and this time his brother-in-law, an old man of 
ninety years, was among the victims, and his nephew, 
who was not yet twenty. I am willing to believe 
that they were both guilty, and that the Emperor 
believed his rigour necessary, yet public opinion 
revolted at it. It was remembered that Trajan, to 
whom the Senate solemnly decreed the surname of 
excellent prince {optiinus 'princeps), never had recourse 
to such lamentable necessities, and it was found that 
Hadrian resigned Jiimself to them too readily. These 
executions, ordered by a dying prince, like a last 
rancour which he desired to sate, made good 
people indignant " He died," says Spartianus, " hated 
by all." 

I know that the enemies of sentimental politics will 
maintain that it was wrong to hate him. It will 



hadeia:n's villa. 229 

^be said that these family strifes scarcely interest the 
world, and that too much importance must not be 
attached to them. What matters it to obscure citizens, 
who form the great majority of a country, that a prince 
be unpleasant and make those about him suffer ? If he 
governs his state well, if he preserves it from outside 
enemies, if he gives it peace within, ought we not to 
shut our eyes to his caprices, and allow him to deliver 
himself as he chooses of the friends who bore, and the 
relations who inconvenience him ? "What evil comes of 
it to his people ? Certainly, if subjects were reasonable, 
they would judge their sovereign by the good he does 
to all, and not by the severity which only affects a few 
persons, and he would seem to them most worthy to be 
loved who made the happiness of the largest number. 
But love does not always reason, and affection includes 
other elements besides interest. So it is not uncommon 
to see sovereigns, under whose rule it is advantageous to 
live, who do not succeed in making themselves beloved. 
Hadrian was of the number. Even at this distance 
of time, we cannot quite overcome the sentiments 
with which he inspired people of his time, and we are 
obliged to make a kind of effort over ourselves, in order 
to esteem him as much as he deserves. However con- 
vincingly M. Duruy may prove to us that he rendered 
more service to the world than Trajan or Marcus 
Aurelius, we shall find it difficult to blame his con- 
temporaries who loved Marcus Aurelius and Trajan 
better than him. 

To these general reasons which the Eomans might 
have for not loving him, may be added others more 
peculiar to themselves. Perhaps a little resentment 



230 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

may have entered into their severity against a prince 
who took pleasure in braving their prejudices, and who 
openly sacrificed them to their eternal enemies. The 
influence of Greece was then stronger than ever in 
Eome. It at the same time seized society by two 
extreme points. Upon the rich, upon the great lords, 
and upon people of the world it forced itself by edu- 
cation and by the sovereign charm of the Arts and of 
Letters. In those sumptuous palaces of the Esquiline, 
in those magnificent villas of Tusculum or Tibur, 
where reproductions of the masterpieces of Praxiteles 
or of Lysippus courted the eye, and where Menander 
and Anacreon were read with such pleasure, people 
had become more than half Greek. In the popular 
quarters they had grown so entirely. There a 
continuous immigration brought from all parts of 
the Orient people who found it difficult to live at 
home. It was a stream which, for many centuries, 
had never stopped. What would old Cato have said, 
could he have seen Greece and the East thus 
established on the Aventine, and that race he so 
despised nearly mistress of Eome ? It was shame 
and danger that faced the old Komans, and they 
naturally found that it was an emperor's duty to 
combat them.^ 

Hadrian, on the contrary, put himself on the side of 
the Greeks. He had devoured their great writers from 
his earliest years, and so delighted in their language that 
it became difficult for him to speak any other. One day. 



^ The violent expression of these sentiments will be found in 
Juvenal's third satire. 



Hadrian's villa. 231 

when, in his capacity of qu&stor, he had to read a 
message from Trajan, he spoke Latin so badly that the 
Senate laughed at him. To admire Greek art did not 
suffice him ; he chose to be an artist himself, and in 
every branch of the art. He became at the same time 
a musician, a sculptor, a painter, and an architect ; he 
prided himself on singing well ; he danced with grace ; 
and he knew geometry, astrology, and enough of 
medicine to invent a collyrium and an antidote. The 
Greeks had not praises sufficiently hyperbolical for a 
prince who excelled in so many different things ; but 
the Eomans, on the contrary, were inclined to laugh at 
him. The more sensible owned that it is certainly not 
a crime to know how to make statues and to paint ; but 
they added, neither is it of much use, when one has 
the world to govern. It seemed to them that this great 
business admitted of no other in addition, and that it 
claimed the whole of a prince's activity. They remem- 
bered, too, that those Emperors who had too much 
loved the Greeks, and who had made it their glory to 
imitate their customs and win their praise — Nero and 
Domitian, for example — had been abominable tyrants, 
and these recollections were not calculated to make 
them favourable to Hadrian's hobbies. 

What irritated them still more was to see the im- 
portant part taken by Greece in the political affairs of 
Eome. For a long time she had been content to rule 
in intellectual matters, and to furnish Eome with 
grammarians and artists ; but from Hadrian's time she 
openly invades what had hitherto seemed forbidden to 
her and reserved for the victorious race. She slips into 
the armies, takes a place in the Senate, and governs 



232 AKCHiEOLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

the provinces. We see among the generals of that 
period the names Arrienos and Xenophon. Of course 
the Greeks were very much flattered at this. Their 
gratitude knew no bounds, and, in accordance with 
their wont, they expressed it in a base and servile 
manner. In their most important cities magnificent 
temples arose in honour "of the new Jupiter, of the 
Olympian god," and his worthless favourite, the beautiful 
Antinoiis, also a Greek, received after his death the most 
extravagant honours. But it is not unnatural that the 
old Eomans who remained should have been indignant. 
It will perhaps be said that they were wrong, and 
that there was nothing in Hadrian's conduct to excite 
surprise, or anything contrary to the institutions and 
the principle of the Empire. The Empire having called 
upon the provinces to share the sovereign authority, the 
turn of Greece and of the East must one day come, and 
it was not very surprising to see Greek generals and 
proconsuls under Spanish Emperors. But a distinction 
must be made. While the provincials of the West, 
admitted by Eome into its armies and destined for 
public dignities, adopted the language and the customs 
of their new country, assumed its spirit and its ancient 
maxims, and became frankly Eoman, the Greeks 
remained Greek. Nothing could ever modify this 
supple and tough race, which passed unchanged through 
the Eoman domination, and survived it. It kept its 
pride even in its servility, and, while flattering the 
barbarians, frankly despised them. So it had no difficulty 
in keeping itself from all imitation of their customs, or 
from fusion with them. I do not believe that any 
Greek ever became quite Eoman, but, on the other 



Hadrian's villa. 233 

hand, many Eomans became entirely Greek, Even in 
Hadrian's time we see Favorinus the Gaul, who was 
born at Aries, and the Italian Elienus of Pmeneste, 
abandoning their native language for that of Greece. 
That this invasion of a foreign spirit should have 
wounded serious Eomans cannot excite surprise. They 
were quite right in thinking that Eome had everything 
to lose by it. The different nations who entered into 
the Eoman unit brought their national qualities and 
rejuvenated the Empire, whereas the Greeks only com- 
municated their faults to it. By favouring the invasion 
of this new spirit, therefore, Hadrian was at least guilty 
of imprudence ; he unconsciously worked at hastening 
the hour of the lower Empire. 

Such, with his singular admixture of great qualities 
and defects, was this Emperor, half Eoman and half 
Greek, the originator, and perhaps even the architect of 
the villa at Tibur. It remains for us to ascertain the 
occasion of his building it. Historians tell us that, at 
least, the greater part was constructed in consequence of 
his travels, and in order to preserve their memory. It 
is known that Hadrian lived very little in his capital, 
and passed nearly all his reign in travelling over his 
vast Empire. Nothing so much struck the world as this 
active life and these endless journey ings. The popu- 
lations who saw him so often go by, retained the 
memory of an indefatigable traveller who was un- 
ceasingly passing from one end of the universe to the 
other. "There never was a prince," says his biographer, 
" who so rapidly visited so many different countries." 

Not that travelling was then so uncommon as is 
usually supposed. People no more liked stopping in 



234 Archaeological rambles. 

one place in ancient times than they do in our 
own days. Seneca was so struck by this craving for 
movement and change of place by which men are 
tormented, that he tried to give a philosophical ex- 
planation of it. He attributes its origin to that divine 
part which is in us, and which comes to us from the 
stars and the sky. " It is the nature of celestial 
things," he says, " to be always in motion." ^ Since the 
Empire had given peace to the world, travelling, being 
safer, had also become more frequent. Those narrow 
roads, solidly paved with large slabs, which led from 
Eome to the ends of the world, were constantly 
traversed by the chariots of knights and by pedestrians. 
People of all fortunes were seen to pass along, from 
him who, like Horace, only mounted a poor mule, short 
of tail and heavy of gait, to those great lords stretched 
in their comfortable litters, where one could read, 
write, sleep, and play at dice, preceded by Lybian 
couriers and followed by a whole train of slaves and 
clients. All these people found more facilities for 
making the journey than we are inclined to think. 
The Imperial post had just been established, and 
provided all those furnished with an authorization 
from the Emperor with horses and carriages, which 
made about 8 kilometres an hour.^ It is true that 
these permits were reserved for functionaries or 



^ Seneca, Cons, ad Helviam, 6. 

^ See Histoirc des moeurs romaines d'Auguste aux Anionins, by 
M. Friedlaeiidar, translated by M. Vogel into French. This excellent 
work, full of curious facts skilfully presented, contains an entire long 
chapter concerning journeys among the Romans. In it all those 
details will be found which I cannot give here. 



Hadrian's villa. 235 

couriers of state. It is rather surprising that it did 
not occur to this practical people, who so quickly 
seized the utility of things, to authorise private 
individuals to use the official post on payment, which 
would have rendered communication more rapid, and 
more closely bound the different parts of the Empire 
together. But authority was probably tenacious of 
its privileges, and stopped by a fear of diminishing its 
prerogatives. In the absence of the post, private persons 
furnished those who wished it with sufficiently con- 
venient means of travel. At the gates of towns near the 
hostelries, which then as now bare a cock, an eagle, or a 
crane for their signs, and which endeavoured to attract 
passers-by with all kinds of engaging promises, it was 
easy to find carriages of every sort for hire, or to 
provide oneself with a horse or mule, by addressing 
those rich societies {collegia jumcntariorum) which 
always had them at the disposal of the public. With 
these horses and these carriages one could go fast if 
one cared to do so. Suetonius informs us that Ctesar 
thus got over 100 inillia (150 kilometres) per day. 
But usually people were not in such a hurry ; they 
went by short stages, lingering at good spots; they 
stopped when they were tired, and admired nature at 
their ease. A few years ago, this was still the way 
people used to travel in Italy. Some think there was 
none more pleasant, and regret that it has been given up 
During the first century of the Empire there was no 
lack of reasons for travelling. Many of the people 
who were to be met with on the highways were function- 
aries on their way to rule distant provinces. Eome had 
conquered the world, and had to govern it. She sent 



236 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

her proconsuls and her proprietors everywhere, and 
they took with them their lieutenants, their quaestors, 
their secretaries, their apparitors, their freedmen, and 
their slaves — a whole world, who were often on their 
way to live at the expense of the provincials. In the 
footsteps of the governor, and often in advance of him, 
travelled the farmers of the public tax, with their scribes 
and their agents, and those merchants who so well 
knew how to exploit a vanquished country. There 
were also, and in great number, students repairing 
to well-known professors in towns where learning 
flourished ; invalids attracted by famous physicians, 
sulphurous waters, or healthy climates ; devotees 
visiting, one after the other, all the important 
sanctuaries, and always with some question to put to 
renowned oracles ; and then, people who had not found 
fortune at home, and were seeking it elsewhere. " All 
the wretches," says Seneca, " who hope to turn their 
beauty or their talents to account, stream into those 
great towns where virtue and vice are paid for 
more dearly than elsewhere." After those who 
travelled as a duty or from necessity, came those who 
travelled for pleasure. The taste for becoming 
acquainted with countries which contained fine 
monuments or recalled great memories, arose early. 
Greece first attracted the lettered, and thence they 
passed into the East. After Pharsalus, Ca?sar does not 
fail to go and see the " fields where Troy was." Ger- 
manicus traverses Asia and Egypt, whose curiosities and 
hieroglyphics he makes the priests explain and read to 
him. It may be supposed that among these sincere 
admirers of the past, who piously visited its remains. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 237 

there were persons who travelled for fashion and 
appearance, to do like all the world. There were 
some, too, as we know, who only undertook these long 
journeys in order not to remain at home. Great 
refined civilisations, which create so many wants in 
man, by habituating him to satisfy all his desires, and 
constantly stimulate the soul without contenting it, 
often bring with them a tiresome companion — ennui ! 
" which," says Lucretius, " Hows from the same source 
as pleasure," and suffices to render life unbearable. 
One always fancies that the best means of escaping it 
is change of place, and one hastens to leave one's home 
and one's country. In vain had the ancient philo- 
sophers repeated that we do not thus rid ourselves 
of our cares, that they faithfully follow us in all our 
excursions, and "ride on horseback behind us"; the 
philosophers convinced no one, and the ennuy^s of the 
second century, like those of our own day, continued to 
seek everywhere for unknown sights and new plea- 
sures capable of affording a moment's distraction. 

Hadrian had all these reasons at once for running 
about the world. The most important and best of all 
of them was his desire to personally ascertain the state 
of the Empire. An administrator of his stamp was not 
unaware that it is good for the master to see everything 
with his own eyes. It was his custom to stop at the 
large towns which were on his line of route. He 
demanded an account of the manner in which they 
were governed, minutely studied their resources and 
their wants, and his passage was rarely unmarked by 
the construction of bridges, roads, and aqueducts which 
he had deemed necessary. Being also very fond of 



238 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

magnificence, after having busied himself with useful 
works, he did not neglect the monuments that 
serve for the decoration of a great country. He re- 
paired the theatres and the basilicas ; he had ancient 
temples rebuilt and raised new ones. So he always 
left the provinces full of admiration and gratitude. 
We have preserved the medals struck by them on 
the occasion of these imperial visits. They call 
Hadrian the restorer, the benefactor, the genius of 
the cities he had passed through, and decree him in 
advance the apotheosis he could not escape on his 
death. When he arrived on the frontiers of the 
Empire, he naturally redoubled his care and vigour. 
Nothing was forgotten. He saw that the fortresses, 
the dykes and the retrenchments were in good condi- 
tion : he listened to the officers, consulted the engineers, 
inspected the legions, made them manceuvre before 
him, and, if he was satisfied with their evolutions, 
addressed to them one of those oratorical orders of the 
day of which so curious an example remains to us in 
the inscriptions of the third legion at Lambsesas. But 
Hadrian did not travel solely in order to be useful to 
the Empire ; he also thought of himself. This zealous 
administrator was at the same time a lover of art, a 
scholar, and a man of letters. When the town which 
he came to was one of those possessing fine monuments 
of the past, he liked to remain longer in it, showed 
it more kindness, and took occasion to return to it. 
His sojourn at Athens enraptured him: nowhere did 
he feel so happy, and there is no town so loaded by him 
with benefits, and where he built more monuments. His 
curiosity did not forget any of the spots recalling great 



Hadrian's villa. 239 

memories. He, too, made his pilgrimage to Troy, and 
restored the tomb of Ajax, to whom he paid great 
honours. At Mantinea he went to see the tomb where 
Epaminondas rested, and composed for the Theban hero 
an inscription full of enthusiasm. In Egypt, he pre- 
sided over the assembly of the learned in the museum, 
and took pleasure in embarrassing them by his captious 
questions. He also went to see the Pyramids, the 
Colossus of Memnon, and probably all the other 
wonders of the time of the Pharaohs as well. In 
these visits he did not think himself obliged to observe 
that cold and formal air which old Eomans were care- 
ful to assume when from Eome, in order to appear more 
grave and dignified. He spoke the language of the 
nations whose guest he was, donned their dress, and 
did not disdain their usages. He doubtless thought 
that in order fully to enjoy a country and understand 
a people, one must enter into its manners and live like 
them. At Eleusis he had himself initiated into the 
mysteries ; at Athens he presided over the feasts of 
Bacchus in the garb of an archon. This behaviour must 
have shocked people who held to the ancient usages. 
One of these malcontents, the poet Julius Florus, 
made some little malicious verses against the travelling 
prince, which must have been read with pleasure by 
all those who could not make up their minds to lose 
sight of the seven hills. " I would not be Ceesar," said 
he, " to hurry off to the Britons, and bear the snows of 
Scythia," etc. To which Hadrian replied in the same 
tone and in the same metre : " I would not be Florus, 
to walk about in the shops, rot in the taverns, and 
be eaten up by the gnats there : " and without any more 



240 ARCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

care for opinion, he continued his roamings. He occa- 
sionally ' even made veritable innovations, and sought 
after spectacles which had hitherto been neglected. 
A poet of the first century who has left us an interest- 
ing description of ^tna, is much surprised at the in- 
difference of his contemporaries for the sights of nature. 
" They pass over lands, they pass over seas," he says, 
"in order to visit great cities and fine monuments. 
They go to see famous pictures — a Venus whose 
tresses seem to wave like a river, or the children of 
Medea playing quite close to their cruel mother, or the 
Greeks who sadly surround Iphigenia and drag her to 
the altar, while a veil covers her father's countenance : 
they admire the statues which have made the glory 
of Myron and others, while they do not deign to look 
at the works of Nature, who is a much greater artist 
than they." ^ Hadrian deserves not this reproach. His 
passionate taste for the masterpieces of ancient art did 
not prevent him from being sensible of the great scenes 
of nature, and he is nearly the only person of his time 
of whom we are told that he travelled in order to con- 
template them. He climbed ^tna, and we are still 
shown the ruins of an old house said to have been 
made there to receive him. He went up Mount Casius 
by night to see the rising of the sun, and was there 
witness of a terrible tempest. So he loved nature as 
much as he enjoyed the arts. This admiration of 
art and this love of nature will be seen again in the 
villa at Tibur. 

^ Lucilius, ^tna, 587. 



TABLE OF REFERENCE 



VILLA ( 



..^P* 



I Gr-c-ak T/he<xtr& 
2 JVi/mpJtejMm, 

5 JSjoecLrcL 

6 OoLoierL PicL^T^cv 

7 Jjihrcjurt&s 

9 ^ccsiZica.y 

\QWaZL af the- Faeci^ 

11 C&nto CiuTzerelLe 

12 ■S'tcuiiiUTv 




hadeian's villa. 241 



II. 

SITE OF HADRIAN'S VILLA — MAGNIFICENCE OF CON- 
STRUCTION — THE EMPEROIt's PURPOSE IN BUILD- 
ING IT — PARTS WHICH CAN BE RECOGNISED — THE 
VALE OF TEMPE — THE PCECILE — CANOPUS — THE 
PRIVATE DWELLING — THE NATATORIUM — THE 
RECEPTION APARTMENTS — THE PIAXZA L'ORA — THE 
BASILICA — THE THEATRES — THE LIBRARIES — THE 
PUBLIC LECTURE HALLS — HELL. 

Age put an end to all these wanderings. When 
Hadrian was nearly sixty, he felt the need of rest. 
Having no children, he began by choosing a successor. 
He first adopted Lucius Verus, who died before him, 
and subsequently honest Antonine. " Then," says an 
historian, "seeing that all was quiet, and that he 
might relax his cares without danger, he left the 
administration of Eome to his adopted son, and with- 
drew to his villa at Tibur. There, as is the custom 
of the rich and fortunate, he no longer busied himself 
with anything but buildings and feasts, statues and 
paintings. In a word, he had no further care but to 
pass his life in joy and pleasure." It must be 
concluded from this passage, that in 136, when 
Hadrian resolved to retire from affairs, the villa at 
Tibur already existed. When he began building 
it is not known, but it is certain that he passed 
the last three years of his life in beautifying it, 
finishing it, and putting it in that state of perfec- 

Q 



242 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

tiou which caused it to be considered one of his finest 
works,^ 

Tlie site of the villa at Tibur is not only very- 
pleasant, it is also extremely healthy ; at that time the 
highest merit of a country house. Doubtless the plain 
of Eome, covered with trees and cornfields, filled with 
charming dwellings, with villas and gardens, did not 
resemble what it has become after several centuries 
of neglect: it was not yet a desert and a ceme- 
tery ; yet, even at the time when it was richest and 
most peopled, the bad air was feared. Cicero highly 
congratulated Komulus on having succeeded in found- 
ing a healthy town in a pestilential country (in 
pestilcnti loco salubrem)? "We know that this pretended 
salubrity of Eome did not prevent the yearly heats 
from bringing fevers, and, as Horace puts it, causing 
wills to be opened. In the surrounding Campagna 
it must have been far worse. So, when one desired to 
build a villa, it was above all things necessary to 
choose its site well. That of Hadrian is situated near 
the last spurs of the Apennines, at the foot of the 
hill on which Tivoli is built. While freely open to 
the beneficent influence of the west wind, the heights 
surrounding it protect it from the sirocco and pesti- 



1 The map we give of Hadrian's villa is chiefly constructed 
according to Nibby, but, in the part near the Valley of Tempe, 
Nibby has often been corrected in accordance with M. Daumet's 
plan. It was not possible to mark on the map the result of 
the last excavations, which are not yet finished, and will doubtless 
involve some modifications in the manner of representing the imperial 
palace and the natatorium. 
' Cic, de Bep., II. 6. 



Hadrian's villa. 243 

lential breezes from the south. Two small parallel 
valleys run north and south, enclosing a plain rising 
in stages, and forming a kind of eminence three miles 
in length. It is on this plain that the villa was 
built. The ground contained many of those natural 
inequalities such as we preserve with care, and which 
seem to us the greatest charms of our gardens. The 
Eomans, on the contrary, did not like them, and took 
great pains to level, by means of vast substructions, the 
soil on which their town or country houses were built. 
We also find these substructions, and in great numbers, 
in the villa of Tibur. Two little streams, descending 
from the mountains of the Sabina, traverse the two 
valleys, and join near the entrance of the villa to 
throw themselves into the Anio. Like almost all those 
of Southern Italy, they are nearly dried up during the 
summer, — that is to say, in the season when they are 
most wanted to be full. Their dearth was made good 
by aqueducts, whose remains have been found, which 
brought the fresh and wholesome water of the mountain 
in abundance, both to the dried-up beds of the rivulets 
and to the apartments of the palace. 

What first strikes us on going over Hadrian's villa 
is its immense extent. Nibby affirms that it covered a 
surface of seven Eoman miles. The Villa Braschi, which 
has been purchased by the Government, and is the only 
portion visited, does not include it all. If we advance 
towards the south, leaving the brambles, the dogs 
and the keepers, and cross the enclosures, we 
shall find other halls, more large and more beautiful, 
perhaps, than those shown to strangers. In order to 
join these apartments, so far apart and so like difierent 



244 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



\ 

quarters of a town, underground passages or crypt 
porticoes were dug, which allowed the prince to pass 
from one end of his palace to the other without fearing 
the heat or the importunate. In all these buildings 
marble was so lavishly used that the ground is still 
covered with it. In course of time ^ it has crumbled up 
into a sort of dust, which glitters in the sun, and tires the 
eye with its reflections. The villa, when its building 
stood, must have been a marvel. It is impossible to cast 
one's eye over the restoration which M. Daumet has 
made of it without feeling dazzled by so much magni- j 
licence. It is difficult to imagine a richer and more 
varied assembla2;e of edifices. It is an incredible 
succession of porticoes, of peristyles, of buildings of all ■ 
kinds and all dimensions. The domes of large halls, 
the round roofs of exedras are mixed with the tri- 
angular pediments of temples, while above the roofs 
rise high towers and terraces shaded by arbours. 
Some surprise is, however, mingled with our admiration. 
The cnscmhk of these vast edifices escape us. We 
admire their variety ; we find a remarkable fecundity 
of invention and resource in them, but we are astonished 
at not seeing more symmetry. It is the impression 
also produced by the Torum, so full of temples, trophies 
and basilicas, and by the Palatine, with the five or six 
palaces that cover it. It will be remembered that we 
drew from it the conclusion that the Eomans were 
less sensitive than ourselves to certain beauties which 
charm us, and that our large straight streets and 
regular squares would have probably left them some- 
what cold. Hadrian's villa confirms this opinion. 
The architect seems to have added buildings one to 



HADRIAJS^'S VILLA. 245 

the other as their waut was felt, without troubling 
himself about the effect that might be produced by 
the whole. We must resign ourselves to the little 
taste shown by the Eomans for symmetry. Let us 
reflect that, after all, it is not here a question of a 
palace situated in a capital, which must have a 
grand air, and give an advantageous idea of him who 
dwells in it, but a country house in which the 
architect is bound to consider convenience more than 
appearance. 

Thus far, we have called all attention to nothing in 
Hadrian's villa that would not be met with in a lesser 
degree in others. There were no houses belonging to 
great personages that were not placed in healthy situa- 
tions, provided, if necessary, with large subterranean 
works, richly furnished with running waters, adorned with 
precious marbles, or that did not contain an incredible 
number of magnificent apartments. The originality 
of the one with which we are busied consisted in the 
following. As nothing any longer interested Hadrian 
but his travels, he desired, even after he had given 
them up, to preserve living mementoes of them around 
him. His biographer relates that he attached to 
certain parts of the villa at Tibur the names of the 
most beautiful places he had visited. The Lyceum, 
the Academy, the Prytaneum, Canopus, the Poecile, 
the Vale of Tempe, " and even," says Spartianus, " in 
order that nothing might be wanting, it occurred to 
him to make a reproduction of Hell there." This 
text may give rise to much discussion. There are 
authors who suppose that it ought to be taken literally, 
and who insist that Hadrian strictly and exactly 



246 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

copied what he had admired in his travels. Canina, 
especially, is most positive on the subject of these re- 
semblances, and, if we were to believe him, there 
is not, in all these ruins, a fragment of wall but is 
the imitation of some important monument. He 
does not see that this is the way to make Hadrian 
very ridiculous. What effect could these reductions 
of mountains, these miniature valleys, and these 
monuments all heaped together, produce upon visitors ? 
Hadrian, as we know, was a clever artist, a man of 
taste, a friend and enlightened admirer of Greek art 
— what pleasure could he find in tormenting nature to 
produce resemblances for him which could never be any- 
thing but incomplete ? We are told that he mshed his 
villa constantly to recall to him the marvels which he 
had seen ; but these paltry counterfeits were rather 
calculated to spoil his recollections than to preserve 
them. Happily the text of Spartianus does not oblige 
us to admit all these exaggerations. He simply says 
that the Emperor so constructed his country house 
as to be able to inscribe in it the names of the most 
celebrated places he had visited {ita ut in ea et provin- 
ciarum et locorum celeberrima nomina inscriberet), which 
allows the supposition that he did not hold to very 
faithful imitations, and, for the most part, contented 
himself with an approximation. It was above all for 
the sites that great allowances had to be made. How 
could it be hoped to reproduce the wonders of nature 
in the little plain stretched out at the foot of Tibur ? 
With regard to the monuments it was easier, and 
there were some, like the Poecile, that could be pretty 
exactly imitated. Yet this exactitude was probably 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 247 

never pushed very far. M. Daumet bids us remark 
that in these Lyceums, these G-ymnasiums, these 
Prytanea, that is to say, in these Greek monuments 
which the artist professed to copy, we everywhere 
find the Eoman vault. " Is this not a proof," he adds, 
" that he did not pride himself on a scrupulous fidelity, 
and that, while keeping the foreign names of these 
buildings, he adapted them to the taste of his age and 
the usages of his country." 

Of all those fine things which Spartianus has enumer- 
ated for us, many are impossible to distinguish now that 
all is in ruins. Yet there are others found again with 
almost certainty, and which help us to judge the rest — 
these are the Yale of Tempe, the Pcecile, and Canopus. 

With regard to Tempe there can scarcely be a doubt. 
It would not be possible to place it elsewhere 
than in that kind of depression which separates the 
villa from the hills on which Tivoli rises. It was 
therefore situated towards the north-west side, along 
the little stream which archseologists call the Peneus. 
Certainly, there was neither Olympus, nor Pelion, nor 
Ossa here, nor those perpendicular rocks, of which 
Titus Livius speaks : " from whose summit the eyes and 
the soul are seized with a kind of giddiness," ^ nor those 
dense woods " which the glance of men cannot pierce," ^ 
and which gave to the real Vale of Tempe a mixture 
of grandeur and grace admired by all travellers. The 
grandeur is much diminished, but the grace remains. 
The little plain was in its nature not devoid of charm. 
They multiplied the shady places in it, they made it a 

1 Titus Livius, XLIV. 6. 2 yHuj, N.E., IV. 8, 15. 



248 ARCHiTlOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

place of pleasant walks, and as the alleys there were 
fresh and leafy, as it was delightful to rest there 
near the water, under the great trees, and recall 
the happy moments passed in roving through the 
beautiful Thessalian valley, they ventured to give it its 
name. On the side of the villa facing the plain large 
terraces extended, which are still to be recognised, with 
their porticoes and marble basins.^ A vast exedra, sup- 
ported on columns, with its back to the Piazza d'oro, com- 
manded all the valley.^ Thence one descended to the 
flower garden by gentle slopes. Only ruins remain of all 
this, but the site is still charming. Vigorous olive-trees 
grow in the interstices of the stones. When one sits 
down in the afternoon, under one of these great trees, 
with its knotty trunk and branches that take all kinds 
of strange forms, one has quite a carpet of verdure at 
one's feet, and, opposite, are the graceful spires of Tivoli, 
and the large modern villas with their arbours resting 
on stone pillars and resembling porticoes. It is difficult 
not to be struck witli the beauty of the spectacle, and 
the valley seems so pleasant that one can easily pardon 
the fantastic Emperor for giving it so great a name. ^ 

The Poecile, on the other hand, looks towards the 
west, facing Eome. Turning to this side, we come to 
a large esplanade, where the inequalities of the ground 
have been corrected by considerable substructions. 
In order that nothing might be lost, the architect built, 

^ See No. 4 on plan. 

- See No. 5 on plan. 

^ Moreover, let us not forget tliat the name had become general 
among the Romans, and that, in their villas, all fresh and pleasant 
valleys were called Tenipe. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 249 

in the substructions themselves, several stories of apart- 
ments, commonly called the Hundred Eooms {Cento 
Camcrelle)} Ligurio, who represented the Ceesars as 
he would the princes of his own time, fancied that 
they went nowhere without being followed by their 
soldiers, and supposed that these apartments were 
destined for the imperial guard, and other archaeolo- 
gists have accepted this opinion. In reality, the 
Eoman Emperors, and especially those who were 
firmly established and liad no sudden revolution to 
fear, did not drag armies after them, and as there were 
usually more slaves than soldiers in their country 
houses, it is natural to think that the Hundred Eooms, 
out of which it has been sought to make a Prtetorian 
barracks, were simply the dwellings of the domestics. 
The esplanade, which extended above the substructions, 
was enclosed by an immense rectangular portico, in 
whose midst was a basin, of which some vestiges are 
still to be seen. One of the sides of the portico is pre- 
served.2 j^^ ^g ^^ brick wall 10 metres high and 230 
metres long. Among so many accumulated ruins it has 
remained erect. When, after making our way with diffi- 
culty among those overturned blocks and scattered frag- 
ments of columns, we suddenly come face to face with 
this wall, so wonderfully intact, our surprise equals our 
admiration. We ask ourselves by what strange fortune 
it did not share the fate of the remainder, and how it 
was saved from the common ruin to which its very 
extent and height seemed the more to expose it ? It 
can hardly be doubted that this portico is the one 
mentioned by Spartianus as the Poecile, and which was 

^ See No. 11 on plan. - See No. 10 on plan. 



250 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the copy of an Athenian monument. The Poecile 
of Athens, with which the description of Pausanias 
acquaints us, was chiefly famous on account of the 
paintings of Polygnotus. He had represented glorious 
deeds there, and especially the victory of Theseus 
over the Amazons, and the battle of Marathon. No 
trace of it now remains. Not knowing whether 
Hadrian imitated it faithfully, it is difficult to say how 
far the copy may give an exact idea of the model. It 
is however certain, that we can easily picture to ourselves 
what the Pcecile at Tibur must have been. On the 
two sides of the wall which has been so well preserved, 
rose columns of which only a few bases are left. 
They supported an elegant roof, and formed two por- 
ticoes communicating with each other by a door which 
still exists. This double portico was so devised that 
one of its faces was always in the shade when the 
other was in the sun, so that one could walk there 
in all seasons of the year and in all hours of the day. 
One had only to change sides, according to the hour, 
and could always find heat in winter and fresh- 
ness in summer. The walls were probably covered 
with pictures, and these pictures must have been repro- 
ductions of those of Polygnotus. Time has destroyed 
them all, but it has not deprived this simple brick wall 
of its air of grandeur and majesty. It is certainly 
one of the finest Eoman ruins remaining to us, and the 
admiration it inspires still further increases when we 
think of the Greek masterpiece which it recalls, and of 
which it is the last memento. 

A little further on, continuing in the same direction, 
we come to a valley of somewhat small extent, and 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 251 

greater in length than in width, which archaeologists, 
on the testimony of Spartianus, agree in calling Canop^is. 
This name, like so many others, was given with 
reason. Upon a brick found in the valley, are read 
these words, which allow of no doubt : Delicice Ganopi. 
We were just now at Athens, visiting the Poecile, and 
now a fancy of the capricious Emperor suddenly trans- 
ports us to Egypt. 

We are to believe that Egypt was one of the countries 
which most struck Hadrian in his travels. That 
strange land, separated by its traditions, its customs, 
its language and its gods from the rest of the world, 
was not to be visited without the liveliest surprise. 
Since the Eomans had become the masters of the 
universe, most of the nations had abandoned their laws 
and their usages in order to assume those of the 
vanquishers : Egypt, under all rules, remained faithful 
to her past. The Greek conquerors who came to reign 
over her, the prefects sent by Eome to govern her, 
changed nothing in her habits. Subdued for more 
than six centuries to strange dominations, she continued 
to live in her own way, built temples as in the time of 
Sesostris, and adorned them with hieroglyphs of which 
her conquerors understood nothing. This country, 
which resembles no other, and which Nature herself 
had made unique, became still more so by immobilising 
herself in her ancient civilisation. To contemplate this 
remnant of the past, so faithfully preserved, was to 
curious travellers a great attraction. So all those rich 
ennuyh who sought new sights and desired to escape 
awhile from the general uniformity, were happy to go 
over this corner of the world, which resembled nothing 



252 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES, 

else. They did not fail to go and see the monuments of 
the Pharaohs, to look at the Pyramids, to hear Memnon 
salute the dawn, and to inscribe their names with 
thanks upon the pedestal or on the legs of the Colossus. 
On their return home, they asked sculptors or painters 
to reproduce what they had been admiring. Thus a 
false Egyptian taste got spread in the art of that epoch, 
which produced a few good works and many ridiculous 
imitations. From the great lords this taste descended 
to the other classes, and the citizens of Pompeii loved 
to paint on the walls of their houses imjDrobable 
landscapes, with palm-trees, ibises, and crocodiles, in 
order to give some idea of that singular land to people 
who had never seen it. 

Hadrian visited Egypt, like the rest, and it is not 
surprising that this curious and sagacious spirit should 
have been more struck with it than anybody. We 
have preserved a letter written by him from Alexandra 
to his brother-in-law, Servianus. In it the aspect of 
this great commercial city, where all the peoples of 
the East assembled, is grasped with great astuteness. 
He has, in particular, very waggishly described the 
activity of this people, busy in the hunt after fortune. 
"No one," he says, "is idle there. Some work glass, 
others make paper, others weave flax. Everybody has 
his work, and practises a calling. Even the blind, the 
gouty, and the halt find something to do. They have 
all of them but one god — money (unus illis deus nummus 
est) — 'tis he alone that Christians, Jews, and all the rest 
adore." As happens in all great industrial cities where 
fortune is so shifting, people sought to enjoy quickly 
what might be so quickly lost, and gave themselves up 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 253 

to pleasure with as much ardour as to business. The 
place of amusement of the Alexandrians, whither they 
went to distract themselves from their occupations and 
lighten themselves of their money, was the town of 
Canopus, situated five or six leagues from Alexandria. 
Canopus possessed a famous temple of Serapis, whither 
people proceeded from all parts of Egypt. Every 
evening the sanctuary was full of persons who came 
to ask the god to heal their own maladies or those 
of their friends. They slept in the temple after 
having offered fervent prayers, and during their 
slumbers they received in a dream the remedy that 
was to deliver them of their ills. But, more often, 
health was only a pretext, and folk went to Canopus 
as in our days they go to the thermal baths ; less to be 
cured than to amuse themselves. The journey was 
made on a canal five leagues long, traversed continually 
by light barks, curved at the prow and at the poop, and 
having in the middle a sort of box, very like those of 
the gondolas of Venice.^ The movement did not stop ; 
day or night there resounded on the waters the love- 
songs of Egypt, famous throughout the world. On 
either side of the canal rose hostelries, abundantly 
furnished with all that could incite to joy and satisfy 
desires. People stopped there to drink the light wine 

^ Some are seen with this form in the famous mosaic at Palestrina, 
and a representative of one of those Egyptian feasts, which must 
have been so frequent along the canal of Canopus, is also found there. 
Under an arbour, covered with a fruit-laden vine, men and women are 
softly stretched, holding drinking goblets in their hands. One of the 
women raises the rhytion to her lips ; a second points to the hanging 
grapes ; others play the flute or stringed instruments, while around 
them flows the river, covered with lotus-flowers. 



254 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

of Mareotis, which produced a gay and brief intoxi- 
cation, and, the repast over, danced to the sound of 
flutes, under arbours or in the shade of trees. Thus 
they arrived at length at Canopus, where still more 
amusements awaited them than on the way. All was 
done there for pleasure, and it was impossible to 
imagine a more enchanting sojourn. " It was like a 
dream," says a contemporary author, " and one thought 
oneself transported into a new world." 

Hadrian, who wished his villa to recall to him all 
the most striking things seen by him in his travels, 
took care not to forget Canopus. In accordance with 
his wont, he did not trouble to produce the Egyptian 
city exactly, which could not have been done in so 
small a space, and probably contented himself with 
a very distant resemblance. At the end of the valley, 
a sort of large niche or deep recess, ornamented with 
great magnificence, served, at the same time, for the 
temple and the water reservoir.^ In the depression 
in the centre of the recess, the statue of Serapis, the 
great divinity of Canopus, must have been placed. 
In the lateral walls smaller niches contained other 
Egyptian gods. These statues are perhaps those found 
among the rubbish of the valley, and placed together 
in the Vatican museum. From all corners of the 
building water flowed in abundance. It descended 
the marble steps, or rebounded on superposed vessels, 
and thence fell into a large semi-circular basin. A 
sort of bridge or passage, placed over the basin and 
adorned with columns which sustained the roof, 

^ See No. 14 on plan. 



hadkian's villa. 255 

enables visitors to pass from one side to the other, 
and to see the cascades more nearly. The water 
flowed beneath, and fell into a canal occupying 
all the middle of the valley. This canal, hollowed out 
of the tufa, was 220 metres long by 80 metres broad. 
Elegant barques, doubtless made on the model of those 
of Alexandria, were reserved for the Emperor and his 
friends, and on the quay the remains of the steps 
are still seen, to which the boats came to fetch them 
when they wished to amuse themselves on the water. 
On one side of it the ruins of a score of two-storied 
halls have been found, sheltered by a fine portico. 
This was perhaps an imitation of the voluptuous 
hostelries where the traveller bound for Canopus was 
so happy to tarry. Those of Hadrian's villa probably 
did their best to deserve the fame acquired by the 
others. What passed there may be guessed, when 
we remember that Hadrian was passionately fond of 
pleasure, and never took the trouble to conceal the 
fact. Marcus Aurelius made some allusions to these 
corrupting spectacles, when, later on, he recalled the 
dangers that had threatened his virtue in his youth, 
and thanked the gods " for having cured him of the 
passion of love to which he had for a moment 
yielded." 

Of the parts of the imperial villa enumerated by 
Spartianus, the above are those still found, and which 
may be pointed out with fair accuracy. Thus, 
we still possess, and can still go over, what the 
capricious Emperor called his Vale of Tempe, his 
portico of the Pcecile, and his " delights " of Canopus. 
This is something, but it is possible to proceed further 



256 ARCHAEOLOGICAL K AMBLES, 

without compromising ourselves. This immense mass 
of ruins must have contained apartments which the 
Emperor was obliged to construct, which the exigen- 
cies of his position solicited for his comfort or his 
pleasures, which his wants or his tastes rendered 
necessary for him, and it is not unreasonable to hope 
to find them. 

And, first of all, it cannot be doubted that he reserved 
a portion of this vast palace for the uses of his private 
life. An aged and invalid prince, so carefully build- 
ing an asylum for his last days, must above all things 
think of his pleasure and his comfort. But where are we 
to locate his private dwelling ? From the time of Ligorio 
the ruins extending to the west, along the Yale of Tempe, 
have been called the Palazzo impenalc. M. Daumet 
thought himself obliged to place it elsewhere. He 
recalled that, in the villas in which opulent Eomans 
sought shelter during the summer heats, as well as 
in those still remaining from the Italian Eenaissance, 
the dwelhng is always situated above accessory build- 
ings, in the most elevated part of the grounds. It is 
natural, indeed, that the master should wish to 
command the plain and enjoy the most extensive and 
varied view possible. If it was thus in the case 
of Hadrian's villa, we must look for the prince's 
private abode a little further to the south, on the 
plateau, where Ligorio thinks he finds the Academy, 
and Canina the Gymnasium, nor does M. Daumet 
hesitate to place it in this spot. However, the 
excavations made a short time since, show him to 
be wrong. In digging in the place indicated by 
Ligorio, chambers of moderate extent have been dis- 



HADETAX'S VILLA. 257 

covered, with corridors and porticoes whose propor- 
tions recall those of the fine houses of Pompeii. It is 
certainly a dwelling appropriated to everyday life, 
and as it is, nevertheless, sumptuous and quite close 
to the great reception apartments, we are free to 
think that the Emperor built it for himself. So 
Ligorio was probably not mistaken in placing the 
Palazzo imperiale, that is to say, the prince's private 
habitation, close to Tempe. 

Near the chamber where he slept at night, a Eoman 
or a Greek thought nothing more necessary to his exist- 
ence than a bathroom. So in the villa at Tibur, the 
construction of nymphea and thermcc was not neglected.^ 
They were wanted for the prince, for his friends, and 
for his servants. It is doubtless to this use that a 
circular building, situated between the private apart- 
ments and the Poecile, was destined, and which is per- 
haps the most curious and the richest thing found in 
the villa.^ The foundations are well enough preserved 
to enable us to reconstruct the plan without much diffi- 
culty. A circular portico, supported on columns of 
giallo antico, of which some remains strew the ground, 
surrounds one of these little streams called by the 
ancients euripes. The canal, lined throughout with 
white marble, in which the water was to flow, is about 
5 metres broad and a little over 1 m^tre deep. The 
space enclosed by the little stream forms a kind of 
islet, which marble bridges join to the exterior portico. 



^ An elegant nymphe^om and very vast thermce are thought to have 
been discovered in the villa. See Nos. 2 and 13 on plan. 
2 See No. 8 on plan. 



258 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

By a not ungraceful caprice, in the middle of the round 
island there is a species of square court, which was 
doubtless meant to be ornamented with some statue. 
Little rounded chambers, niches opening on the euripes, 
whence fountains flowed, occupied the unequal seg- 
ments between the rectangular line of the court and 
the curved line of the canal. Nothing is more original 
or more pleasing to the eye than all these ingenious 
combinations. The floor of the chambers, of the court, 
and of the porticoes is covered with broken marble. 
Numerous remains of columns have been found here, 
with fragments of bas-reliefs, representing marine mon- 
sters — Tritons, Nerides, and little Cupids mounted on 
hippocampi. What could have been the destination of 
this fine edifice, constructed with so much care and 
refinement ? The most probable opinion seems to be 
that of Nibby, who calls it a natatorium, and makes a 
kind of piscina of it. The small chambers surrounding 
the euripes were perhaps cabinets for repose, or might 
serve the bathers to undress in. The remains of steps 
have been found leading from them into the canal. The 
nearness to the imperial palace, and the magnificent 
decorations of these baths incline one to the belief that 
the Emperor had reserved them for himself, and, indeed, 
they are quite worthy of this voluptuary, this friend 
of refined pleasures. It is difficult to imagine a spot 
where one might repose more pleasantly in the oppres- 
sive summer hours than in these elegant halls, in the 
midst of all the riches of a refined art, beside this 
euripes noiselessly circling in its marble bed, and lulled 
by the murmuring of the water softly falling from the 
fountains. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 259 

Not far from the habitation of the prince were the 
reception apartments. We are bound to believe that, 
although Hadrian, in building his villa, paraded his 
taste for retirement, he did not abandon his duties as 
Emperor until the end. However numerous the friends 
of kings may be, it was not for friends alone that these 
immense halls, which still excite our astonishment, 
were built. There are some magnificent ruins near the 
Palazzo imperiale, along the Vale of Tempe. This is the 
part specially studied by M. Daumet, who has tried to 
restore them for us to nearly the same condition they 
were in at the time of Hadrian's death. In order to get 
to the chief halls, a long series of various edifices had to 
be passed through, which must have greatly impressed 
visitors. An octagonal vestibule led into one of those 
courts, called by the Komans peristyles. There were 
many in the villa, but this one must have been more 
spacious and more beautiful than the others. So many 
rich remains of it have been found, that the architects 
by whom it was cleared named it the Piazza d'oro} It 
was surrounded by a portico, with columns of cipollino 
and Oriental granite. A pavement of pink marble 
covered its floor, and statues, whose bases are believed 
to have been found, completed this magnificent decora- 
tion. At the end of the peristyle, facing the vestibule, 
rose a vast hall, terminated by a semicircular recess. 
At the four corners of the hall were niches lighted 
from above. M. Daumet thinks they were made to 
contain statues, and the care taken to light them well 
induces the belief that they must have been the works 

^ See No. 6 on plan. 



260 AECHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

of renowned artists. It is known that this favourable 
arrangement, which allows of the better enjoyment of 
works of art, has been reproduced in the Belvedere 
Court of the Vatican. So much magnificence seems, 
indeed, to show that this fine hall, with the peristyle 
preceding it, was reserved for imperial audiences, and that 
it was here that the prince admitted to his presence the 
envoys of towns and provinces who came to see him. 
We may also connect with these official apartments, 
where Hadrian fulfilled his imperial function, a hall 
in pretty good preservation, which we pass through on 
our way from the natatoruim to the Poecile.^ It has 
been styled, in turn, a temple and a place of meeting 
for philosophers {schola stoicorum). Hadrian did not 
like philosophers, and least of all the Stoics, enough to 
build them so fine an edifice. I should be rather 
tempted to see in it a basilica, for it resembles the one 
found on the Palatine. We know that Trajan was 
accustomed to assemble in his villa of the Hundred 
Chambers {Genhim Ccllm) a sort of privy council, 
composed of senators and magistrates, to judge with 
him causes whose decision he had reserved to himself. 
These were usually delicate matters concerning officers 
of his army or persons of his household. By day, 
advocates were heard and sentences pronounced ; in 
the evening the Emperor admitted the judges to his 
table, and the repast ended, they indulged in pleasant 
conversation or listened to mimea and comedians.- If 
Hadrian followed Trajan's example, which is likely 

^ See No. 9'on plan. 
2 Pliuy, EfisL, VI. 31, 



hadeian's villa. 261 

enough (for he was a great disciplinarian), and assembled 
this kind of tribunal in his villa, they probably held 
their sittings here. 

Lastly, let us not forget that Hadrian was not only a 
blameless Emperor, who made a point of fulfilling 
exactly the duties of his position, but that he was also 
a very refined scholar, felt a great attraction for intel- 
lectual pleasures, and loved much to imitate the Greeks. 
We must, indeed, believe that these tastes of the old 
prince left some traces in the villa built by him. Near 
the Poecile a stadium, with very considerable de- 
pendencies, has been found in pretty good preservation.^ 
All the Emperors who loved Greece affected a passion 
for the games of athletes, much as, in the last century, 
great French lords, who wished to follow the fashion of 
the English aristocracy, never spoke of anything but 
horses and jockeys. Scenic displays were still better 
provided for, and in the villa there are at least three 
theatres. One seems to have been an odeum, another, 
the best preserved of all, situated at the point where 
the villa is now entered, is preceded by a large square 
piazza, which must have served as a promenade for the 
spectators. Certain details of construction have led to 
the belief that it was a Greek theatre.^ The Latin 
theatre is a little higher, on the same side as the Vale of 
Tempe.^ It is now much deteriorated, but it is said that 
in the last century the marble linings of the orchestra, 
and the bases of the statues which ornamented 
the podium, were still to be seen. It must be owned 



^ See No. 12 on plan. - See No. 1 on plan. 

^ See No. 3 on plan. 



262 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

that this abundance of theatres, iu an age when 
dramatic art was so little cultivated, is rather surpris- 
ing. The existence of the Greek theatre, could, indeed, 
be understood ; a lettered prince like Hadrian, endowed 
with a taste for refined things, might like to listen to 
the pieces of Menauder there. This great poet, who 
knew life so well, and had so delicately portrayed it, 
kept all his empire over a delicate and distinguished 
society. He was studied in the schools, read in the 
world, and we know that at Naples, in the first century, 
he was played. But what could have been represented 
in the Latin theatre of the villa at Tibur ? Is it likely 
that they went back to Plautus, Ciecilius, and Terence ? 
These revivals of admiration were then much in fashion. 
Hadrian piqued himself on preferring Ennius to Virgil, 
and Frono, in his correspondence, speaks on every 
occasion of the old atelana- ; but to admire ancient 
writers in one's study, or cite fragments from them in one's 
writings, is not the same thing as to produce them on 
the stage before people who understand them only with 
difiiculty. Perhaps the Emperor, in order to seem to 
protect letters, welcomed in his country theatre the 
rare works still composed by a few men of talent. They 
were generally rather poor imitations of the Greek 
dramatists, made for fashionable drawing-rooms, and 
which could scarcely succeed before a real public. 
Perhaps, too, Hadrian, who towards the end of his 
life was morose and sought distraction, had actors of 
popular pieces sent to his villa to play before him : two 
mimes were then in favour with the Eoman populace ; 
one representing a robber-chief at loggerheads with 
justice, and laughing at the people who try to take him ; 



Hadrian's villa. 263 

the other in which a lover, surprised by the unexpected 
return of the husband, is obliged to hide in a box ; two 
subjects which from that time have not ceased to 
amuse the mob, and sometimes clever people as 
well. 

There is no doubt that there were libraries in 
Hadrian's villa — probably a Greek and a Latin one. 
They are believed to have been recognised in two 
buildings placed close to each other, and containing 
several rooms.^ The only reason for thinking so is, 
that they are situated according to the rules of Vitru- 
vius, who holds that books should receive the morning 
light. Above one of these buildings rose a three-storied 
tower, which may have served as an observatory to a 
prince fond of astrology. According to usage, these 
libraries must have contained the busts of great writers, 
as well as their works. A certain number have been 
found in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, of which one, at 
least, comes from Hadrian's villa. Each of them bears 
a short inscription, characterising the personage whose 
features it produces. Below the sage Solon are read 
these words : — " Nought in excess." The prudent Pit- 
tacus teaches us that " The opportunity must be seized," 
and melancholy Bias that " The great majority of men 
are wicked." ^ This custom of decorating libraries 
with the portraits of the great men whose works they 
hold, existed in the time of Cicero. Sad, discouraged, 
and foreseeing the end of the Eepublic when he beheld 



^See No. 7 on plan. 

2 These hermes are now placed in the Hall of the Muses of the 
Vatican museum. 



264 AECHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the dishonest attain to the highest honours, he took 
refuge in study, lived in the midst of books, and wrote 
to his friend Atticus : " I love better to be seated at 
your house, on this little bench, which is beneath the 
image of Aristotle, than in their curule chairs."^ 

Neither do I hesitate to believe that the villa at 
Tibur must also have possessed a hall for public read- 
ings. Hadrian was very fond of them. At Eome he 
had had the AtheuEeum constructed, whither rhetori- 
cians and poets came to recite their writings. He 
probably did not neglect to provide his country house, 
where he had more leisure, and could listen at his 
ease to the authors whom he loved, with some building 
of this kind. Unfortunately, it has not yet been 
possible to find it in the midst of all these ruins, any 
more than the Lyceum and the Academy. Perhaps 
the little theatre of which a few remains were found at 
the end of the villa, and which archaeologists call an 
odeon, was destined to this use. According to Hesy- 
chius, the odeon was reserved for the displays of the 
rhapsodists and players on the cithern.^ It was natural 
that it should also be used for public readings, and it 
may indeed be concluded from a curious passage in 
Horace, that people really met in the theatres to listen 
to the works of authors of renown. He tells Maecenas, 
in order to make him understand whence come the 
enmities which pursue him, that he has not been par- 
doned for having refused to read his works in public. 
At the very moment when Pollion has just instituted 
these literary feasts, and when all Eome, not knowing 

1 Cicero, Ad. Alt., IV. 10. ^ Hesch, s. v. 



Hadrian's villa. 265 

what to do with its leisure, is rushing to them, he seems 
to condemn them, by abstaining from taking part in 
them. His only reason is that it is repugnant to him to 
make a spectacle of himself, "in a theatre," for the 
crowded throng: — 

" Spissis indigna iJieatris 
Scripta pudet recitare : " ^ 

But others had not the same scruples. Ovid likes 
to recall that in his youth he read his love verses 
" to the people," ^ and we are told that Statins, when he 
consented to promise that on a fixed day he would read 
his poem, made " the town " happy .^ Although allow- 
ances must be made for the exaggerations of poets, 
"the people" and "the town" mean very numerous 
assemblies, which could not be held in ordinary rooms, 
and it is probable that the full theatres (spissa theatre) 
spoken of by Horace, are also meant in these cases. 
Even when the readings drew fewer people, and 
the meetings were held in more modest premises, 
if these were no longer real theatres, they must, at 
least, have had their form. Juvenal greatly pities the 
poor authors who, in order to make themselves known, 
borrow an old, unused room from some great lord, and 
furnish it at their own expense. One sees from the terms 
he employs, that they arrange it so that there may be 
an orchestra and tiers of seats, — that is to say, what 



1 Hor., JE2}. I. 19, 41. 

2 Ovid, TrisL, IV. 10, 55. 

^ Juvenal, VII. 83 : Lceiam cum fecit Statins urbevi. And, further 
on, he not only calls the audience pqpulus, like Ovid, but vulgtis. 



266 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

really characterises a theatre.^ The orchestra, whence 
one sees better and hears more closely, is reserved for 
personages of importance. It must be furnished with 
commodious seats, so that being more at their ease, 
they may be the more disposed to admire. On the 
benches raised one behind the other, crowd obscure 
friends, clients, dependants, all those whom one invites 
that they may swell the number and applaud: these 
are the noisy portion of the audience. The great 
personages in the orchestra only give vent to a little 
murmur when they are pleased, but the friends in the 
farthest seats show their approbation by shouting out 
and stamping. Opposite, in a sort of raised tribune, 
towers the reader. He comes and takes his seat there 
with a modest air, " well combed," says Persius, " draped 
in his new toga, wearing rings on his fingers, his larynx 
made supple by an emollient potion, and gazing on the 
audience with a caressing eye." ^ If he reads agreeably, 
if he has chosen his audience well, if he possesses some 
resolute friends in the orchestra and vigorous clients 
on the benches, his first words will be received with 
favour, murmurs of approval will soon change into 
applause, and, as happens in these well-prepared assem- 
blies, the audience, exciting each other, will ere long 
rise to transports of enthusiasm. 

It is thus that so many mistakes arose at this epoch 
as to the real merits of works, and agreeable frivolous 
productions, whose success ought not to have lasted 
beyond the day, were saluted as marvels destined to live 
for ever. It would be very interesting to come upon one 

^ Juvenal, YII. 46. " Persius, I. 18. 



HADRIAN^S VILLA. 567 

of the halls in which these little scenes took place. I 
do not know whether we shall he so fortunate as to Und 
some remains of them in the villa at Tibur. In any 
case we may be sure that it will resemble this odeon 
of which I spoke just now, and that it will always be 
some kind of small theatre.^ 

In conclusion, it only remains for us to allude to 
Hell; for in the Tibertine villa there was also a 
reproduction of the infernal regions. Hadrian, his 
biographer tell us, put them there in order that 
nothing might be lacking. Archseologists have en- 
deavoured to find its site again, but it will be difficult 
to succeed so long as we do not know on what model 
the Emperor built it. Was it a work of individual 
fancy, or did he adhere to the descriptions in the 
sixth book of the j^neid? We do not know. The 
curious thing is, that it should have occurred to him 
to place Tartarus and Elysium in his country house. 
Does it not prove that his contemporaries were begin- 
ning to busy themselves strangely with the other 



^ In the month of March 1874, while excavating on the Aventine, 
at the spot where it is believed the gardens of Maecenas were 
situated, a vast hall was found, magnificently decorated, and forming 
at one of its ends a hemicycle, around which seven concentric rows of 
benches rise to the ceiling like an amphitheatre, while at the other 
extremity they came upon what were thought to be the traces of a 
sort of tribune. This reading-hall had been discovered, and it was 
called the auditormm Mcecenatis, under which name it is still known. 
(See Bull, d'arch. munic, 1876, p. 166, etc.) But some doubts have 
since arisen with regard to this attributed designation. M. Man, in 
the Bulletin de I'lnstitut de correspondance archeologique, 1875, p. 89, 
maintained that it was only a kind of hot-house, and that the benches 
had served to put pots of flowers upon. 



268 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

life ? ^ As for himself, I do not believe that he was 
much tormented by the thought of it. This wary 
politician and sceptical wit was not of those on whom 
the mystic religion of the East, and the new feelings 
they spread in the world, could have had much hold. 
We are told that, when he felt death coming, he was 
sufficiently master of himself to compose little frivolous 
verses, in which, addressing his little, trembling, 
charming soul, he tells it, with an accumulation of 
strange diminutives which cannot be rendered, " Thou 
goest to the regions pallid, stern, and bare, where thou 
canst no more yield thee to thy wonted sports." How 
had he represented these "regions pallid, stern, and 
bare " in his villa ? We must make up our minds to 
remain in ignorance of this. 



III. 

DID THE ROMANS UNDERSTAND AND LOVE NATURE? — 
THE REASONS THEY HAD FOR LEAVING THE TOWN — 
HORACE AT TIBUR — LIKING OF EVERYBODY FOR THE 
COUNTRY — HOW PLINY THE YOUNGER LIVED THERE 
— HIS VILLAS — HIS GARDENS — SITES PREFERRED 
BY THE ANCIENTS — THE VIEW FROM THE PCECILE. 

The above description of Hadrian's villa explains that 
it has sometimes been severely judged. Certainly 
nothing less resembles a country house as we now 

^ The day when Caligula was killed, he gave games to the people in 
which Egyptians and Ethiopians represented scenes in the infernal 
regions. The spectacle was to take place in the evening and be 
prolonged into the night. 



Hadrian's villa. 269 

understand the term. This profusion of buildings, this 
crowding of edifices, this stadium, these theatres, this 
Lyceum, this Academy, are bewildering to our habits 
of thought. There is nothing rustic here, nothing 
smacking of the fields; all seems to be showy, 
worldly, and got up. Perhaps we should merely con- 
clude from this, that the Eomans understood the 
country differently from us. But people go farther 
still, resolutely affirming that they did not like it 
at all, and the villa at Tibur serves as an argument 
for those who would prove that they never had 
either the understanding or the taste for nature. 

This is a reproach very generally made against 
the Eomans, and in our eyes it is a serious one. We 
unanimously profess to be passionately fond of nature ; 
it is more than ever good form to go and visit famous 
ruins, and we should all feel extremely hurt if accused 
of not properly admiring them. N"obody would be 
found among us with the courage to say, like Socrates : 
"Not only do I not leave my country, but I never 
put my foot outside of Athens, for I love to learn — 
and the trees and the fields will teach me nothing." ^ 
This is a confession that would make us blush. The 
fields and the trees have now grown more obliging, 
and there is no one, even among the most simple 
and cockneyfied, who does not profess to gain some- 
thing by communing with nature. The curious 
have noticed the epoch when this taste for natural 
beauties became so lively. It was born in the 
middle of the eighteenth century. Eosseau first brought 

^ In the Phoedra of Plato, 



270 ARCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

the mountains into fashion, and the glaciers were 
found out by following his footsteps. Since then 
Switzerland, which used to be considered a barbarous 
country, has become the obligatory pilgrimage of all 
persons endowed with self-respect. It is talked about 
every day, read about everywhere, and makes us very 
proud of ourselves. I do not mean to say that people 
are altogether wrong. Certainly, for a century past, 
the feeling for nature has become broader and more 
general ; but, on the other hand, one should not exag- 
gerate, and pretend that it was lacking in the Eomans. 
They understood and loved it after their fashion, and 
I do not think it useless, since the occasion offers, to 
inquire what was their particular manner of loving 
and understanding it. 

The Eomans had come from the fields, and the 
country was long their favourite sojourn; but, later 
on, the town drew them to itself, and very few resisted 
the attraction which they felt for it. Great person- 
ages who aspired to public functions were, indeed, 
forced to settle there, in order to be always before the 
eyes of their electors. They were followed thither by 
the small proprietors of the Eoman Campagna, when 
want obliged them to sell their fields to their invading 
neighbours. Then, after the others, came the free 
labourers, who could no longer find employment 
except in painful or dangerous works, in which the 
rich man feared to risk his slave. These poor people 
ended by wearying of the rude existence they were 
condemned to, and knowing that in town they would 
be amused and fed at the expense of the treasury, they 
hastened to emigrate thither. When they had once 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 271 

received their tepera of corn or oil in the public distri- 
butions, or their sportula at the doors of the rich ; when 
they had once acquired the habit of assisting at those 
spectacles of every kind which filled a third of the year, 
there was no longer any means of sending them back 
to the fields again. Sensible people were indignant 
at seeing a population of idlers continually growing, 
from whom in moments of public danger not a soldier 
could be drawn. Varro eloquently complains that the 
country had become depopulated since the husbandmen 
have slipped into the town, one after the other, and 
that " those strong hands which used to work the soil 
are dow only busied in applauding at the theatre or 
the circus." But these honest complaints were not 
listened to, and the impetus once given, it could not be 
stopped. From the time of Augustus, the great city had 
absorbed the inhabitants of the surrounding country. 
The country was now only filled with vast pastures and 
country seats, while the old towns of Latium or the 
Sabina, that had for so long stemmed the fortune of 
Eome, fell into ruin. 

The sojourn at Eome must assuredly have been very 
pleasant. Distractions and pleasures of all kinds 
were found there in abundance, suited to all tastes and 
all fortunes. Yet it could not escape the ordinary 
condition of large towns. The ardent life led in them 
famishes by producing an unbearable weariness. The 
perpetual tension to which the mind is doomed exhausts 
it, the noise stuns, the whirl of business one is thrown 
into makes one giddy, and one can hardly bear this 
general agitation, the sight of which at first pleased 
the eye. And just as warmly as we desired to be taken 



272 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

out of ourselves by exterior movements, do we wish to 
become our own again, and belong to ourselves for a 
moment. The most frivolous and worldly people feel 
strange yearnings for solitude and quiet, and endeavour 
to satisfy them. Milton has described, in beautiful 
verses, the joy of one of these prisoners, who, one 
summer morning, shakes off his chains and flies to the 
fields. Never did the meadows seem to him so green 
and the sky so pure. He listens to all the rural sounds, 
he inhales with joy the odour of the mown grass ; he 
enjoys that broad and pure horizon which rests the 
eyes, and that warm, sweet air which expands the 
heart. All strikes and charms him, and the sights he 
has seen a hundred times appear to him new. There 
he is sensible to beauties he had never perceived, 
although he always had them before his eyes — he has 
discovered the country. I imagine that these were 
also the impressions of many Eomans, who one day 
found courage to break their bonds, and went to ask 
the fields for a little rest and calm, and that it was 
thus that the weariness of worldly enjoyments that pro- 
duced in them the taste for the pleasure of the country. 
The poet Horace was, I believe, of this number. 
Nobody has celebrated the country more than he. 
From the manner in which he speaks of it, it would 
appear as if he were made to be happy only there, and 
had never loved anything else. One feels, however, 
that this taste was not so natural in him as in his 
great predecessor Lucretius, and his friend Virgil.^ 

^ This is what seems to be noticeable in the landscapes which he 
loves to draw. Whatever their merit, they have always something 
less deep and more mundane than those of the other two poets. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 



9^5? 



Rome suited him very well during the first years. He 
found sights there which excited his inquisitive mind 
and stimulated his satirical spirit. It seemed very 
pleasant to him there as long as he could walk alone 
from the Forum to the Field of Mars, and look freely at 
the tumblers and fortune-tellers, but when the friend- 
ship of Maecenas had turned him into a personage, and 
he could no longer leave his house without being beset 
by strangers who congratulated him on his good 
fortune, bores who questioned him on public aftairs, 
and suitors who craved his help, the town became 
abhorrent to him. These importunities grew so 
hateful, that he nearly lost his usual moderation over 
them. He desired retirement with a passion which 
cannot but surprise us in a sage who professed to wish 
for nothing with too much ardour. So he lived very 
happily in his little country house. But I am tempted 
to believe that what lent the greatest intensity to his 
bliss was the recollection of the importunities of the 
town he had left. Perhaps he would not have 
thought that he made " repasts of the gods " there, had 
he not recalled, while seated unceremoniously at table 
with a few neighbours, the tedium of the great 
dinners at Eome, with their tyrannical laws that 
obliged one to drink as many cups as the king of the 
feast chose, and their unbearable conversations, whose 
sole staple were recent scandals and famous actors. 

Mythology holds a great place in them, and it is not always, as 
with Lucretius and Virgil, the simple rendering and sincere expres- 
sion of the great phenomena of nature. It is often merely one of 
those processes used by a clever man to throw charm into his 
descriptions. 

S 



274 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

The mischievous have remarked that he never seems 
so taken with the country as when he is kept in 
town. One day, at Eome, when he has suffered all 
kinds of solicitations and worries, he gives vent to the 
following exclamation, into which he has put all his 
soul : " rus quando ego te aspiciam ? " He appears 
to cool down towards his cottage when he gets there, 
and often wishes to leave it after having been in it but a 
few weeks. This is an inconstancy of which he humbly 
accuses himself, but has great difficulty in correcting. 
" Lighter than the wind," he says, " I wish to be at 
Tibur when I am at Eome, and I regret Eome when I 
am at Tibur ! " Here, indeed, is the impenitent world- 
ling, who thought himself cured because he felt a 
moment's disgust for those pleasures that enchant 
him, and who does not delay to resume his old yoke 
as soon as his ill-humour is past. It is only towards 
his life's end that his conversion became complete. 
He then got to love the country much more than his 
best friend would have had him do. He even broke 
his word to Maecenas on this account, and, after having 
promised to be away only a few days, kept him waiting 
for whole months. 

Horace's case must have been that of many Eomans 
of his time. There were not a few, who, like him, 
became very fond of the country because they had 
been too fond of the town. These contrasts and 
revulsions are not rare with people who go to extremes 
in everything. When weariness and eiinui drove them 
from Eome, they began by wandering around the great 
city, which they hardly dared lose sight of. They 
chose to separate themselves from it as little as pes- 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 275 

sible, and built themselves villas quite close to the 
gates, along the high roads on the two banks of the 
Tiber. But they soon discovered that these villas 
and gardens, that cost so dear, did not give them 
relief. The town they would fain have flown from 
came and found them out there. The poor always 
in their way follow the example of the rich. Eome 
was oppressive to them as well, and they did not 
wish to stay in it. On holidays, the whole population 
of the poor rushed into the taverns of the outskirts, 
along the river, into the sacred woods, about the 
temples. They danced, " each with his female other," 
says Ovid,^ and they dined in the open air, or under 
tents of foliage. It was a noisy, inconvenient neigh- 
bourhood, and it was scarcely easier to be quiet in the 
vicinity of Eome than in Eome itself. So they were 
obliged to go farther — to Tusculum, to Prteneste, or to 
Tibur ; and when these spots near the town, becoming 
fashionable, were in their turn too much frequented, 
and the calm and retirement sought for were no longer 
to be found there, they had to go further still. It is thus 
that all Italy, from the gulf of Baise to the foot of the 
Alps, became covered with elegant villas. " When," said 
Seneca to the rich men of his time, " will you cease to 
choose that there shall be no lake undominated by 
your country houses, no river unbordered by your 
sumptuous buildings ? In every place where hot 
waters spring, you hasten to erect new asylums for 
your pleasures ; in every spot where the shore forms 
a curve, you raise some palace, and not content- 

1 Ovid, Fastes, III. 525. 



276 AECHiEOLOGICAL EAJIBLES. 

ing yourselves with the firm land, you throw dams 
out into the waves, in order that the sea may be 
included in your constructions. There is no part of 
the country where your dwellings are not seen to 
shine, sometimes on the tops of hills, whence the eye 
roves over vast extents of land and sea, sometimes 
raised in the midst of the plain, but at such heights 
that the house appears a mountain." ^ 

It was not the rich alone who felt a craving to fly 
the town and breathe the air of the fields. Well-to-do 
freedmen, small citizens, and, above all, men of letters, 
more in love with silence and liberty even than 
the rest, were glad to possess, somewhere far from 
the crowd and the noise, what Juvenal calls " a lizard 
hole." Suetonius, whom his erudite works had not 
enriched, one day took it into his head to buy a small 
domain and not pay too dear for it. At his request, 
Pliny, who protected him, charged an important per- 
sonage to mediate in the business. " What tempts our 
friend," he told him, " is the neighbourhood of Eome, 
the facility of the communications, the simplicity of 
the buildings, the small extent of the domain — large 
enough to distract, yet too small to engross him. It 
suffices studious men like himself to have enough 
ground before them to repose the mind and rejoice 
the eyes. They want scarcely more than a small 
bordered path, an alley to lounge in, a vineyard with 
whose every vine they are acquainted, and a few trees 
whose number is known to them." "^ Is this not still a 
real scholar's garden of our own day ? 

1 Seneca, F4nst., 89, 21. - Pliny, Ej}ist., I. 24. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 277 

Among these lovers of the country of all ranks and 
conditions who hastened to fly the town at their first 
leisure, there were indeed some who, like Horace, soon 
repented of having left it. Solitude bored more speedily 
than noise had tired them. They could not overcome 
their regret for the pleasures of the world. Could they 
long remain far from the games of the circus or the 
amphitheatre ? " It was indeed indispensable," says 
Seneca, "to see a little human blood flow,"^ and 
they hastened to return to Eome faster than they had 
left it. But this was the exception : generally rich 
Eomans remained in their villas as long as they could. 
They had some on the tops of mountains, and on the 
borders of rivers for the summer season, and others, 
sheltered from the sharp winds, to live in during the 
winter. Some were very far away from Eome, and 
people went to them in the long holidays, — for instance, 
in the autumn, during the vintage vacations. They 
repaired to those quite close to the town, only when 
there were but two or three days of leisure at disposal. 
Thus, they dwelt in Eome solely when absolutely 
detained there by business, and sought the country 
even in town. " The populace," says Pliny, " were quite 
content to put flowers in their windows : " ^ poor flowers 
which must have had great difficulty to live, without 
air and without sun, in the narrow streets of the ancient 
city. Those who could have a house built for them 
took care to reserve room behind the atrium for 
a little garden with a few trees, which they called a 
grove, a little thread of water in a marble river bed, 

^ Seneca, De tranq. animi, II. 13. - Pliny, Nat. Hist., XIX. 4, 19. 



278 AECH.^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

which they called curipus, and at the bottom a grotto 
of rock-work, beside a flying perspective of trees painted 
on the wall, so anxious were they to deceive themselves 
and forget that they were in the midst of a large town. 
Here we have a community which appears indeed 
very much in love with the country, yet let us not for- 
get that its taste for the fields was chiefly bom of dis- 
gust for the town; for many signs show this. It is 
easy, I think, to see that the people who lived in those 
large villas were rather men of the world who wished to 
recuperate, than disinterested friends of nature. They did 
not go into it only to live in a sort of mute contempla- 
tion of rural beauties, and they would have been thought 
in the wrong had they shut themselves up in it to leave 
it no more. In the time of Tiberius, Ser^ilius Vatia, 
an important personage of Eome, doubtless alarmed and 
disgusted by all he had seen in the Senate, caused a 
magnificent villa to be built for him near Cumea, and 
passed his life there. It does not occur to us to blame 
him for having retired from so much peril and shame, 
and no one will think of pitying him for ha\dng lived 
in such a charming country, yet the Eomans found it 
extremely difficult to understand how, even under the 
Empire, one could voluntarily exile oneself from society 
and from public business. Servilius Vatia appeared to 
them to have buried himself alive, and Seneca tells us 
that every time he passed near the beautiful villa at 
Cumea, he could not help saying : " Here rests Yatia." ^ 
The masters of these country houses, then, were usually 
people engaged in the activity of business and the 

^ Seneca, Epist., 55, 4. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 279 

movements of life — financiers and politicians who 
sought repose from old fatigues and strength for new 
ones, and writers who came to rest their minds and 
refresh their imaginations in solitude. " Here," says 
Pliny, quite happy to have reached his house at Lauren- 
turn — " here I hear no troublesome noises, here I com- 
mune only with myself and with my books. sea, 
shores, my true study rooms, what ideas you cause to 
arise in me, how many works you dictate to me ! " ^ 
Being very fond of talking to us of himself, he draws 
for us the picture of the life he leads there, hour for 
hour. "I wake up when I can, usually towards the 
first hour (six in the morning). My windows at first 
remain shut, for I have remarked that silence and dark- 
ness stimulate the mind. If I have some work begun, 
I busy myself with it. I arrange all, the ideas and even 
the style, as if I were writing and correcting. I work 
thus, sometimes more and sometimes less, according as 
I find more or less facility in composing and retaining : 
then I call a secretary, have the windows opened, and 
dictate what I have composed. At the fourth or fifth 
hour (ten or eleven o'clock) I go for a walk in an alley, 
or under a portico, according to the weather, and I do 
not cease while walking to compose and dictate. After- 
wards, I take a drive in a carriage, and here again I 
continue the work I busied myself with during my 
morning rest and my walk." ^ And he goes on giving us 
the account of those various days when work is mixed 
up with everything, even to the evening meal : for it is 
his custom to accompany it with instructive reading. 

1 Pliny, Epist., I. 9. 2 piiny^ ^pigt,^ IX. 36. 



280 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Even when he gives himself some unusual pleasure — 
for example, vrhen he goes hunting — he is most careful 
to take his tablets with him. They are beside him while 
he sits near the nets, and, while waiting for the boar to 
show sport, he draws his stylet, and sets to work writing, 
and, if he returns empty-handed, he will at least bring 
back his pages full. This is not quite how we under- 
stand country life. Doubtless, not everybody was then 
so laborious as Pliny. There must have been people who 
did not always drag their secretary after them, and 
who, when they went hunting, left their tablets at 
home. But almost all were, like him, politicians, 
orators, men of letters, men of the world, whom fatigue 
had for a moment driven from town, who were prepar- 
ing soon to go back to it, and who desired to profit 
by their sojourn in the fields, with a view to bring 
to their usual functions a body more robust and a 
mind more lively. 

Knowing for whom the Eoman villas were made, and 
what their owners went to seek in them, we find that 
they answered their purpose completely. Their whole 
construction, down to even the smallest details, was 
admirably thought out. Pliny the Younger has described 
his to us, and this account suffices to give us an idea of 
the others. On reading them, we shall first be struck 
to see what an essential resemblance these houses of 
Laurentum and Etruria bore to Hadrian's villa, which 
we have just studied. There is, in reality, only one 
difference between them — that which fortune and rank 
made between their proprietors. A mere private indi- 
vidual could not allow himself what an Emperor dared 
to do; but the general system of construction and 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 281 

decoration is the same, and Pliny's letters often con- 
firm M. Daumet's restoration. I suppose that if we 
could see Pliny's villas, and especially that of Etruria, 
which was the finest, our first impression would be one 
of great astonishment at the multiplicity of buildings 
composing it. All these edifices, of different heights 
and forms, rather in juxtaposition than united, would 
appear to us more a village than a country house.^ 
But we must bear in mind that a Eoman had to be lodged 
there, and that a Eoman, even when he prides himself 
on living simply, cannot do without a crowd of slaves. 
When he is not content to pack them into the cellars, 
but wishes, like Pliny, to give them proper chambers, 
which may at need be offered to his friends, there must 
be plenty of room and numerous separate buildings. 
What surprises one still more than the number of the 
separate buildings, is that no pains have been taken to 
arrange them in a regular manner ; but we have already 
seen that the Eomans, especially in their country houses, 
do not appear to have cared much for external appear- 
ance. Hence it is that their architects, instead of 
placing all the living rooms and all the chambers on 
the same side for the sake of symmetry, distributed them 
about here and there, so as to give them different 
aspects. They multiplied separate pavilions, in order 
that the occupants might be more isolated, and have a 
finer view from every side. The general arrangement 



^ I am not sure that Pliny does not mean to express a similar idea, 
when he says that, from his house at Laurentum, a crowd of villas are 
perceived "which, viewed from the sea, or even from the coast, look 
like a multitude of towns." — Epist., II. 17. 



282 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

might seem less happy, but the apartments were more 
comfortable, and that was enough for them. We are 
vain folk, who make the facade the first consideration, 
and provided it afford a better show we willingly sub- 
mit to be badly lodged. The Eomans troubled them- 
selves less about the passers-by, and only built the house 
for those who were to live in it. All that could render 
it more pleasant to them was lavished without stint, 
and nothing was spared when it was a question of 
procuring them that fortifying rest and that variety of 
calm pleasures which they came to seek. Pliny was 
certainly far from being a voluptuary. He passed, on 
the contrary, for a man of the ancient manners, and 
the poet Sentius Augurinus sees in him several Catos.^ 
One cannot, however, help feeling alarmed on seeing 
to what a point he pushed his search after comfort, 
in his pleasure - houses. One loses oneself in the 
enumeration which he makes of his apartments. He 
has dining-rooms of various sizes for all occasions. 
He dines in this one when he is alone ; the other 
serves him to receive his friends in ; the third 
is the largest, and can contain the crowd of his 
invited guests. The one faces the sea, and while 
taking one's meal one beholds the waves breaking 
against the walls ; the other is buried in the grounds, 
and in it one enjoys on all sides the view of the 
fields and of the scenes of rustic life. Nowadays, 
one bed-chamber usually satisfies the most exacting; 
it would be difficult to say how many Pliny's villas 
contain. There are not only bedrooms for every want, 

^ Pliny, Epist. IV. 27 : Ille o Pliniua, ille, quot Catones ! 



hadeian's villa. 283 

but for every caprice. In some one can behold the sea 
from all the windows ; in others one hears it without 
seeing it. This room is in the form of an abside, 
and, by large openings, receives the sun at every 
hour of the day ; the other is obscure and cool, and 
only lets in just so much light that one may not be 
in darkness. If the master desires to enliven himself, 
he remains in this open room, whence he can see all 
that passes outside; if he desires to meditate, he has 
a room just suited for the purpose, where he can shut 
himself up, and which is so arranged that no noise 
ever reaches his ears. Pliny calls it "his delights." 
In his villa he is happy to be far from Eome ; in this 
room he seems to be far even from his villa. Let 
us add that these rooms are adorned with fine mosaics, 
are often covered with graceful pictures, and that they 
nearly all contain marble fountains; for water flows 
through it on all sides, clear, fresh, and abundant. It 
enlivens all by its murmur, and is one of the essential 
elements in the decoration of villas. It enters greatly 
into the capricious inventions of the architects when 
they wish to find new arrangements whose originality 
may please those fastidious and idle great lords. We 
remember the elegant bathing-hall surrounded by the 
euripus in Hadrian's villa. Pliny could not have such 
a costly edifice built for him, but he had at the end of 
his garden a leafy arbour supported on four columns 
of Carystiern marble. Under this arbour, which formed 
a pleasant shelter, were placed gushing fountains; a 
basin filled with water, constantly renewed and never 
flowing over; and, lastly, a couch of rest of white 
marble, whither one came to stretch oneself in the 



284 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

heat of the day. "From this bed," says Pliny, "the 
water escapes on all sides by little pipes, as if the 
very weight of him who reclines upon it caused it 
to spring forth." ^ To complete the whole, we must 
imagine baths, piscince, tennis-courts, porticoes ex- 
tending in every direction for the enjoyment of all the 
views, alleys sanded for walks, others whose soil is 
firmer and more suited for riding in litters ; and, lastly, 
for those who choose to ride on horseback, a large 
hippodrome, formed of a long alley, straight and 
sombre, shaded by plane-trees and laurels, while on all 
sides curved alleys wind, which cross and cut each 
other, so as to render the space greater and the pro- 
menade more varied. This is what was to be found 
in the villa of a man rich but steady, who wished, 
without being foolishly extravagant, to be comfortably 
housed in the country, in order to rest there at his ease. 
We have said nothing about the parks and the 
gardens, which — a country house being in question — may 
seem strange ; but it is rather difficult to speak of them. 
As may be well imagined, these are what have been 
least preserved in ancient villas. To enable us to 
judge of what they must have been, we have only a 
few paintings in which they are represented somehow 
or other, and what writers chance to tell us about them. 



^ It is a fancy of this kind which originated Varro's famous aviary, 
so vast, so beautiful, so full of ingenious complications, and so peopled 
with rare birds. The middle of the aviary formed a dining-room, 
where the table and couches of the guests were surrounded by running 
water, so that, while eating the most delicate viands, one could see the 
fish swim about at one's feet, and hear the blackbirds and the night- 
ingales singing around one. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 285 

Their data are somewhat incomplete, and only half 
satisfy our curiosity; but they have at least the 
advantage of being all in agreement with each other. 
Among the landscapes which decorate ancient houses 
at Eome and at Pompeii, some pictures of gardens have 
been found. These are always regular alleys, shut 
in by two walls of hornbeam, cutting each other at 
right angles. In the centre a kind of round space is 
usually found, with a basin in which swans are swim- 
ming about. Every here and there little arbours 
of greenery have been arranged, formed of canes inter- 
laced and covered with vines, at whose end a marble 
column or a statue is seen, with seats placed around to 
allow promenaders to rest for a moment. 

These paintings remind one of the following saying of 
Quintilian, which naively expresses the taste of his age : 
"Is there anything finer than a quincunx so disposed 
that, from whatever side one looks, only straight alleys 
are perceived ? " ^ Writers add some curious details to 
this information. It is seen from the descriptions of 
Pliny the Younger, that in his gardens, as in the paint- 
ings of which we have just spoken, the alleys were 
bordered by veritable walls of verdure. He thus with 
great pleasure describes for us a fine alley of plane-trees, 
of which he is very proud. " My plane-trees," he says, 
"are covered with ivy, which, twining around the trunks 
and the branches, and stretching from one tree to 
another, binds them all together. Between them, 
to make the wall thicker, box has been planted, and 
behind the box, laurel, in order to finish and fill up the 

1 Quint., VIII. 3, 9. 



286 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

interval." Box, especially, plays a great part in Roman 

gardens. It not only forms the border of the parterre 

and pleasingly frames the capricious designs traced on 

it, but it is cut in the strangest manner. They 

were not satisfied with cutting it into pyramids, or 

forming vases of it, as has been done at Versailles ; 

they made it represent animals looking at each other, 

and even fashionnd it into letters giving the name 

of the owner or the gardener.^ These fancies were 

in vogue from the time of Augustus. It would seem as 

if the Romans, intoxicated as it were by their fortune, 

then became more sensible to what Saint Simon calls 

"the proud pleasure of compelling nature." At the 

same time that they try to introduce the country into 

the town, they bring the town into the fields. In order 

to level the ground on which they are about to erect 

their villas, they raise hills and fill up valleys. In 

their gardens they only like trees whose growth has 

been stunted or whose form distorted. There are, 

indeed, a few sensible people, and especially the poets 

Horace, Propertius, and Juvenal, who protest against 

these caprices. Seneca declares roundly that he prefers 

" brooks whose course has not been constrained, and 

which flow as nature pleases, and fields which are 

charming without art," but Seneca did not the less 

inhabit villas in the taste of the day. He had clipped 

hedges, cut box, counterfeited trees, and all the tricks 



^ Let us not too hastily laugh at this mania, for do we not see it 
revive before our eyes ? Has it not of late become the fashion to trace 
strange designs in our gardens with flowers ? We already form the 
owner's initials and shall soon get to write his fentire name. 



HADRIAN'S VILLA. 287 

which he thought ridiculous. So true is it that it is 
easier to laugh at fashion than to escape frora it. 

Furthermore, it is evident that gardens and parks 
had not then the importance which they have assumed 
with us. This is well seen from the little room 
they occupy in Pliny's descriptions. The ancients 
did not possess all the means of varying and embellish- 
ing them known to us to-day. They lacked several of 
the trees which form their ornament, and, above all, 
their flora was not so rich.^ Their gardens, therefore, 
were less capable of natural adornment than ours, 
and, indeed, they cared much less for it than we do. 
What stands them in lieu of all, and what they most 
passionately desire in their villas, is the view. In 
order to obtain a broad or smiling view, embracing a 
vast horizon, or looking on a charming spot, they 
grudge nothing. It is the chief charm of their pleasure 
houses. They consent to walk or ride in litters, in 
monotonous alleys, between two hedges of hornbeam 
but when they are at home, in their dining-rooms, in 
their chambers, or in their studios, they choose to have 
the most beautiful spots before their eyes. They love 
nature and enjoy the country from their windows, as 
it were. 

However, we must here make yet another distinction. 
The views sought after by the Eomans were not 

^ M. Friedlaender remarks that Europe owes part of the magnificent 
flora of its gardens to the great taste of the Turks for flowers. The 
tulip, the lilac, and the ranunculus, as M'ell as the cherry-laurel and the 
mimosa, have passed through Vienna and Venice into the west. Later 
on, the discovery of America brought a new and much more abundant 
importation of flowers and ornamental plants into Europe. 



288 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

always those preferred by us, and among the sites 
that please us most there are some that would not 
have been to their taste. Their love for nature had 
its preferences and its limits. Large plains, fine 
meadows, and fertile fields enchanted them. Lucretius 
can imagine no greater pleasure, on days when one 
has nothing to do, than "to recline by a brook of 
running water, beneath the leafage of a high tree," 
and Virgil wishes himself, as the greatest bliss, that 
"he may always love tilled fields and rivers that 
flow along the valleys." This is the foreground 
of the landscapes they love — meadows, crops, a 
few fine trees, and water. Let us add to it, as a 
background to the picture, some hills on the horizon, 
above all, if their sides be cultivated and their 
summits wooded. The frame is thus filled in. It 
only contains those simple and proportioned beauties 
which please these delicate artists above all things. 
But it must be owned that, if rich and civilised nature 
charms them, they have less understanding for the 
grandeur of nature in its wild state. Cicero says 
downright that only the force of habit can enable 
us to find a charm in mountain views. During many 
centuries Eoman officers, chiefs of legions, governors 
of provinces, — people of open mind and awakened 
taste — crossed the Alps without feeling other sensa- 
tions than tedium and fear. They would have been 
much surprised to learn that one day thousands of 
travellers would admire the spectacle which seemed 
to them so repellent. People went but little into 
the mountains from curiosity. If a journey over the 
St Gothard could not be dispensed with, before under- 



HADRIAiSi's VILLA. 289 

taking it, prayers were offered up to Jupiter ^j?'o itu et 
reditu, and the poet Claudianus says that when the 
glaciers were caught sight of, it was as if the travellers 
had seen the Gorgon, so terrified were they.^ It is 
certainly a conquest to have become sensible to these 
fine spectacles, and we must congratulate ourselves 
on having done so, but perhaps we have lost on the 
one hand what we have gained on the other. I quite 
admit that we understand the poetry of a wild spot 
better than the ancients did, but, do we feel so acutely 
as they what St Beuve calls " the charms of a reposeful 
landscape " ? When we go over Upper Italy, and 
arrive in the neighbourhood of Mantua and the banks 
of the Po, the view of this country, formerly celebrated 
among travellers, leaves us nearly indifferent. Our 
minds being taken up by the fine views of the Alps, 
which we have just crossed, we scarcely vouchsafe 
even a disdainful glance at that smiling meadowland 
and the great calm river that waters it. Yet it is 
the fatherland of Virgil, the country which he had 
before his eyes in his childhood, and which never left 
his heart. Those plains, to us so void of character, 
awoke in 'him the love of nature. In order to under- 
stand it, he did not need to plunge into the mountains, 
to climb to the region of eternal snows, and to see 
the great rivers issue from the glaciers. Eor him, 
"it was enough to look upon those green fields, to 
walk along these brooks, under the pale foliage of 



^Claudienus, I)c hello get., 340, etc. See, on this subject, the 
chapter of Friedlaender on the sentiment of nature among the 
Eomans, at the end of the second volume of the French translation. 

T 



290 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

the willows, to talce the shade and the freshness beside 
the sacred founts, and to listen at eventide to the 
complaint of the wood-pigeon and the distant songs 
of the peasant cutting his trees." It is thus that 
there awoke in his soul that deep feeling of universal 
life and that generous sympathy with nature which 
enraptures us in his verse. So, have we gained 
as much as is asserted, if, by dint of progress, we 
have become incapable of understanding the scenes 
and loving the country that inspired such beautiful 
works ? 

To return finally to the villa at Tibur and the prince 
who built it : it seems to me that Hadrian and his 
country house give us on the whole a true enough idea 
of the way in which Eomans understood nature and 
enjoyed it, and that this manner is neither so unreason- 
able nor so different from our ov/n as is supposed. Like 
the curious of our day, Hadrian roamed about the 
world a great deal, and visited in preference countries 
whose natural beauties are heightened by great histori- 
cal memories. Such a taste will appear strange to 
none. Nature also appealed to him for her own sake, 
and we see that he did what was not done in his 
time, he climbed Mount ^tna and Mount Casius. But 
when he chose to construct a country house for his 
last years, he did not build it on the side of Casius or 
of ..^tna ; and he did well. Those are spectacles one is 
charmed to see once, but which it is not well to have 
always before one's eyes. He chose one of those more 
limited, less grand sites which do not crush mankind 
by their sublimity, which do not constantly over-excite 
liis admiration and end by fatiguing, but which, on the 



hadeian's villa. 291 

contraiy, induce calm and repose. In order to see 
whether his choice was a happy one, we need only 
return for a moment to the villa at Tibur, and look 
upon the admirable view which is enjoyed from the 
Poecile. Let us place ourselves on the circular piazza 
that ends it, and which was so arranged that nothing of 
the fine spectacle might be lost. We may be sure that 
there were marble benches here, and that Hadrian and 
his friends often came hither to sit at day's decline. 
Before us, Eome first attracts our eyes. The whole of 
it is seen with its towers and domes outlined against 
the sky. Who knows but that Hadrian, in placing his 
villa opposite to his capital, wished to give himself the 
pleasure of a striking contrast ? The poet says that 
there is nothing more pleasant than to hear the wind 
howl when one is quietly sheltered in one's house, and 
perhaps it seemed to this prince, wearied with power 
and life's activity, that this distant bustle would make 
his rest more sweet. But if Ptome first attracts the 
attention, the surrounding views soon seize upon and 
enchain it. Near us, on all sides, the hills gradually 
rise and climb, growing more green and smiHng as they 
retire farther from the plain. To the left are seen the 
summits of the Latian hills, to the right the pictur- 
esque mountains of the Sabina, Mentana, Monticelli, 
and, further off, Palombara, at the foot of Mount 
Gennaro. It is impossible to imagine an horizon 
more simple, and, at the same time, more expansive, 
more grand and calm, more variety and propor- 
tion. "It is not only a landscape," says Pliny the 
Younger, " it is a picture." i It is difficult to tear 

^ Pliny, Epist, V. 6. 



292 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

oneself from this spectacle, and in leaving it one tells 
oneself that it is impossible to maintain that people 
who knew so well how to choose the situation of a 
pleasure house did not love the country and under- 
stand nature. 



CHAPTEE V. 



S T I A. 



To talk of Ostia is not to wander far from Eome. In 
spite of the distance separating them, Ostia may be 
looked upon as one of the outskirts of the great city. 
It has always been mixed up in its history, was neces- 
sary to its existence, and early became one of the organs 
of its life. The journey to Eome would therefore seem 
incomplete were one to neglect to go and see it. 

Yet there is no easy way of getting there. There being 
no public coach running thither, it is an excursion to be 
thought over and prepared in advance ; a circumstance 
that discourages many of the curious from undertaking 
it.^ The first part of the journey is monotonous enough. 
We leave Eome by the St Paul gate, the ancient porta 
Ostiensis, and follow the Tiber nearly all the way. The 
banks of rivers are usually smiling and green, and we 
guess their course by the clumps of trees that shade it. 
Here there is no verdure : the Tiber, yellow and silent, 
flows between a few meagre shrubs and bushes whitened 

^ A railway Las lately been constructed, which goes as far as Fiumi- 
cino ; but from Fiumicino to Ostia the road is long and inconvenient. 
The isola sacra, peopled by herds of nearly wild cattle, has to be tra- 
versed, and the Tiber to be crossod. 



294 AECH.EOLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

by the dust. Yet in the flourishing times of the Empire 
this was a pleasure resort. Financiers and great lords 
bought a small garden near the Tiber at a high price. 
They feasted their friends of both sexes there, and a 
poet of the time represents them as quaffing dainty 
wines from goblets carved by grcEit artists, to the jocund 
sound of the barques continually passing up and down 
the river.^ To-day there are no longer either barques or 
gardens, and nothing troubles the solitude of this desert 
but a few droves of horses or oxen, led by hard-eyed herds, 
whom the passer-by scares away. We meet nothing 
but one or two peasants on horseback, returning from 
town, with their picturesque costume, their great boots, 
their pointed hats, and their long sticks slung across 
the saddle. Time slips by ; the road continues to rise and 
fall, and the spectacle is always the same. At length, 
after two hours of this monotonous road, thickets are 
seen, trees reappear, and the horizon broadens. We 
behold in the distance the parasol pines of Castel- 
Fusano, pass a few cornfields, and soon reach Ostia.^ 



' Propertius, I. 14. 

" The Roman administration has not yet published a map show- 
ing the present state of the excavations at Ostia. At my request, 
M. Laloux, a member of the Academie de France at Rome, kindly 
repaired to Ostia, and, taking for the basis of his work a plan of Canina, 
marked out the discoveries made for twenty years past. If readers, 
thanks to the map lie has traced, follow the account which they are 
about to read of these discoveries with more facility and pleasure, 
they, like myself, will thank M. Laloux for the tiouble he has taken 
for them. 



OSTIA. 295 



MODERN OSTIA — ASPECT OF THE PLAIN BY WHICH ANCIENT 
OSTIA IS COVERED — HOW THE TOWN CAME TO BE 
ABANDONED — THE FIRST EXCAVATIONS MADE THERE 
— SIGNOR VISCONTl'S LABOURS — DISCOVERY OF THE 
STREET OF TOMBS — THE HOUSE KNOWN AS THE 
IMPERIAL PALACE — THE GREAT TEMPLE AND THE 
STREET LEADING TOWARDS THE TIBER — THE SHOPS 
SITUATED ALONG THE RIVER. 

The modern town presents itself to us under the aspect 
of a church of the sixteenth century, and of an elegant 
castle with the arms of Julius II. graven upon it. 
About the castle two or three houses are closely 
crowded. They constitute the entire town. During 
the fever season, which begins early and ends late, the 
inhabitants are about a dozen in number. In the 
month of ISTovember, some hundreds of peasants arrive 
from the vicinity, crowd themselves into huts, and 
cultivate the country. As soon as the heats return 
they hasten away. 

On advancing a few steps beyond the houses and the 
chateau, and looking around, one is struck by the 
majestic spectacle before one. Not a sound rises from 
the great surrounding plain — all seems motionless and 
mute. It is a loneliness and a melancholy which strikes 
the soul. Our emotion is increased when we reflect 
that this silent spot was formerly one of the most 
bustling in the world, peopled as it was with the busy 
crowd that thronged it when the fleets of Africa and 
Egypt brought thither the corn which fed Eome. The 



296 AECH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

sea, sparkling in the distance, forms, as it were, a 
luminous frame to the desolate picture. To the right 
the Tiber divides into two branches, which environ the 
isola sacra, now inhabited by herds of buffaloes ; around 
us, as far as the eye can reach, the plain is covered 
with little hillocks of unequal size. These are heaps of 
rubbish covering a great buried city. Below this piled- 
up earth, in which our foot strikes at every step against 
fragments of marble, pieces of pottery, and the handles 
or bottoms of broken vases, we are sure to find ancient 
Ostia again. 

Such an assertion may at first sight cause some sur- 
prise. We can understand that the eruption of Vesu- 
vius, seizing Pompeii in the fulness of life, and in a 
single day burying it all beneath its ashes, should have 
preserved it for us as it was ; but Ostia was not, like 
Pompeii, the victim of a sudden catastrophe ; it perished 
slowly and in detail. How comes it, then, that it is 
hoped to find important remains of it again ? Because 
it ceased to be inhabited all at once. Its prosperity 
depended upon the prosperity of Eome, of which it was 
the port, and declined rapidly when Eome no longer 
drew to her the travellers and the merchandise of the 
entire world. The invasions of the barbarians struck 
it the final blow. From Genseric downward, it was the 
natural road of all the bold pirates who were tempted 
by the riches accumulated in the Eoman Campagna.^ 

^ Even in Cicero's time, a Roman fleet commanded by a consul 
had been surprised and destroyed at Ostia. ' ' Almost before the eyes 
of Rome," says Cicero, to whom this misfortune appears an ignominy 
{Pro lege Man., 12). The pirates, who were kept away during the 
flourishing days of the Empire, returned in the fourth century. 



osTiA. 297 

It was there they disembarked in order to be nearer to 
their prey, when they wished to attempt some advan- 
tageous coup-de-main without giving time for prepara- 
tions of defence. These repeated incursions soon made 
the sojourn at Ostia unbearable. The poor town was 
then forced bitterly to regret its neighbourhood to the 
sea, which, after having so long made its fortune, 
exposed it to so many unforeseen attacks. Every 
attack of which it was the victim diminished its popu- 
lation. Probably, one day, the last remaining inhabi- 
tants, threatened with an onslaught more furious than 
the others, and seized with fear, suddenly fled together 
far from the coast. They doubtless sought some 
asylum, either in the mountains of Latium or the 
Sabina, where they felt certain the enemy would not 
follow them, or behind the walls of Eome just rebuilt 
by the Emperor Honorius. Once out of the town, 
they were not tempted to return. The incursions of the 
pilferers became each day more frequent. It may be 
said that, from the last days of the Empire down to our 
own time, they never stopped, and that safety was never 
for a moment restored to this unhappy shore. The 
Vandals were succeeded by the Saracens and the Bar- 
bary pirates, whose unceasing depredations inspired the 
people of the country with a terror of which the memory 
has continued to live on all the maritime coast of 
Latium. Under Pope Leo XII., a short time before the 
taking of Algiers by the Erench, people still spoke of 
houses pillaged by them, and of peasants whom they 
had carried off in order to make slaves of them. This 
is why Ostia, once abandoned by its inhabitants, was 
never repeopled, and it is just this which has preserved 



298 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

its remains. Other Eoman towns had, doubtless, much 
to suffer from the Goths, the Lombards, and the Franks ; 
but they continued to live, and, living, renewed them- 
selves. It being necessary to lodge, when houses became 
too old, they were rebuilt. The old ones furnished the 
materials for the new, and nothing of the ancient con- 
structions remained. It is man, much more than 
time, who destroys the monuments of the past. For- 
tunately for Ostia, it has only had to do with time. It 
has doubtless often been pillaged; but the pillagers 
were generally in a hurry, and had not time to ravage 
thoroughly. Moreover, they did not care to take all. 
They entered the deserted houses, hurriedly loaded them- 
selves with what seemed to them precious, and what 
they could easily carry away. Sometimes they violated 
graves, when they hoped to find rich booty there. On 
the road leading from Eome to Ostia, a large slab that 
covered one of the finest tombs was brutally prised up 
with a lever and flung into the middle of the road, where 
it h?^ been found. Temples attracted them above all. 
Along the walls of the Temple of Cybele marble linings 
are seen in splinters, and iron clamps twisted. Below, 
inscriptions inform us that wealthy worshippers had 
here consecrated silver statues, representing emperors or 
gods. The inscriptions are still there, but the statues 
have disappeared, and this twisted iron and broken 
marble show us with what roughness and violence the 
removal was effected. But if they took the silver 
statues, they left the marble ones, whose value they did 
not know, and which would have been too cumber- 
some to carry off. Neither could they take away the 
houses. This is how, in spite of such frequent ravages, 



OSTIA. 299 

so many remains of ancient Ostia still exist. When 
nothing was left to tempt robbers, they returned no 
more, and left the town to perish from age. Little by 
little the walls fell in, the columns of brick and stone 
sank one by one, crushing each other in their fall, and 
then, with time, a layer of earth covered all, and grass 
grew over the ruins. But, below, there still exist the solid 
foundations of houses and public monuments, pave- 
ments of mosaic or of marble, prone columns, broken 
friezes, and, without doubt, fragments of wall as well, 
protected by the very fall of neighbouring buildings. 
Excavations might, therefore, be undertaken without 
misgiving, for, I repeat, on raising this rubbish, there 
was the certainty of finding the remains of a great 
city. 

Amateurs of the last century knew this well, and 
therefore sounded nearly all this vast plain, each time 
drawing forth remarkable works of art. These fortun- 
ate discoveries, the precious marbles with which the 
ground is spread over, as it were, and the inscriptions 
everywhere found, at last aroused public attention. 
Many persons said to themselves that perhaps they had 
another Pompeii within their grasp, at but a few miles 
from Eome, and that this good fortune should not be 
neglected. In 1800 it occurred to Pope Pius VII. to 
begin regular excavations, which were directed by the 
architect J. Petrini ; but, unfortunately, political events 
soon interrupted them. They were not resumed until 
1855, when Pius IX. entrusted Signor Visconti with 
their prosecution. The works, carried out by convicts 
who had been lodged in the castle of Julius II., were 
well conducted, and the success obtained from the com- 



300 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

mencement drew the attention of the learned world to 
them.i 

At the time when the excavations began, nothing of 
ancient Ostia remained upright but the four walls of a 
temple, called, I know not why, the Temple of Jupiter, 
which must have been one of the most important 
of the town.2 This temple had been saved from 
destruction by its height, being built above a huge 
substruction, forming a sort of lower storey, almost as 
high as the temple itself. The fragments of neighbour- 
ing houses having covered up all this storey, the door 
of the monument became on a level with the new 
ground surface, and, fortune helping, the four walls had 
held fast. This, then, was the only building which had 
survived the general ruin, and it attracted attention 
from all sides of the immense plain. Excavations were 
begun on this side, in the time of Pius VII., and the 
vicinity of the temple cleared. Signor Visconti chose to 
proceed in another way, and follow a more regular 
course. Instead of establishing himself at once in the 
heart of the city which he desired to uncover, as Petrini 
had done, he attacked it, as it were, from the outside, 
and tried to enter by the gate. He remembered that at 
a certain spot a large number of funereal inscriptions 
had been found, and supposed that it must be near a 
public way. At Ostia, as everywhere, tombs were 
placed on both sides of the highways, and the abode of 
the living was only reached after passing through that 



' Signor G. S. Visconti made known the chief results of these 
excavations in the Ann. de I'Inst. de corresp. archeol., 1857, p. 281, etc. 
^ See No. 5 on plan. 



• OSTIA. 301 

of the dead. These suppositions were found to be 
correct, and on digging round tombs it was not long ere 
the large stones of the Via Ostiensis were discovered. 
From that moment, there was no possibility of mistake, 
and, in order to reach the city gate, it was only neces- 
sary to go straight on.^ 

The road was cleared for some distance. It is a way 
5 metres broad, with roomy side walks and two rows 
of tombs. These tombs, in general less handsome than 
those at Pompeii, are also of a more mixed character. 
Besides very simple columbaria, containing freedmen or 
poor people, is found the tomb of a somewhat vain 
Eoman knight, who had caused himself to be repre- 
sented with the insignia of his dignity and genii 
offering him wreaths. At Ostia a knight must have 
been a great personage. Then the remains of rather 
extensive premises are found, divided into a large 
number of small rooms, which, according to some, 
served as a barracks, and according to others, as an 
inn. Thence we arrive at one of the gates of the town, 
whose threshold is still in its place, and enter Ostia. 
The quarter by which we enter is wretched enough, as 
is usually the case with the outskirts of large towns, 
and especially of commercial towns, where so many 
poor people are crowded together. The chief street is 
bordered by houses of small and poor appearance, and 
it is soon seen to divide into several more narrow 
streets, leading in contrary directions Signor Yisconti 
hesitated to penetrate further. The walls which he 



^ See No. 1 on plan. Other tombs, less curious, have been found 
along what is believed to be the Via Laurentina. See No. 2 on plan. 



302 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

met with on his way had been repaired anyhow, with 
ruins brought from elsewhere, while a small stone urn, 
taken from a tomb, had been made into the basin of a 
fountain. He concluded from these signs that he had 
fallen upon a quarter very hurriedly reconstructed in 
the fifth or sixth century, after a first disaster to Ostia, 
when the frightened inhabitants sought to get away 
from the sea where so many enemies came from, and 
thronged into this little corner of the town, on the side 
towards Eome, whence aid might be hoped for. 

But he had, at the same time, approached the town by 
another of its extremities, towards the spot where it 
touched the sea, and here he was more fortunate. A 
little lower than the Boacciana tower a considerable 
mass of ruins had long since been remarked, arranged 
so as to form a semicircle, and doubtless belonging to 
some important building. It was generally supposed 
that it must have been a market (einporiMm), and as 
Canina remembered to have seen a reproduction of such 
a monument on a coin of the Emperor Severus, and this 
prince had made a large road (Via iSeverina), which 
started just from the spot and skirted the whole littoral, 
he did not hesitate to believe that he had built this 
market too, and to call it emporium Severi} Beside the 
emporium, there rose quite a hill of rubbish ; Signer 
Visconti thought that it must cover some rich habita- 
tion, and made his workmen resolutely attack it. First 
a statue of Ceres was found, and then, under twenty feet 
of earth, the most beautiful mosaic that had been dis- 
covered in Eome for some time past. "This marble 

^ See No. 12 on plan. 



OSTIA. 303 

pavement," says one of the explorers, " confirms Ennius 
Quiriuus Yisconti, wlio holds that in mosaics of the 
kind we see an imitation of the carpets of Alexandria, 
which were the delight of antiquity. These capricious 
arabesques, enclosed in regular compartments, sur- 
rounded by festoons and scroll-work of the richest 
invention, and set off with the brightest and most har- 
monious colours, produce the same effect, and have for 
the eye the same charm, as the most magnificent of 
carpets." ^ It was soon found, by unmistakable indica- 
tions, that the hall where this fine mosaic was placed 
belonged to some baths, and, as ornaments had been 
lavished upon them, it was supposed that they were 
public ones. It was known with certainty, from a 
curious inscription, that the Emperor Antoninus had had 
sea-water thermce built at Ostia, which cost him more 
than 2,000,000 sesterces (400,000 francs), and it was 
believed that they were brought to light again.^ But 
on continuing the excavations, it was perceived that, 
notv/ithstanding their magnificence, these baths were 
only an accessory to a sumptuous dwelling which is 
now quite cleared. It occupies a large space, or, as the 
Eoraans used to say, an entire island, shut in between 
four streets. The chief entrance near the Tiber is 
adorned with two fine columns of cipoUino, now replaced 
upon their bases. The house is built like those of 
Pompeii, but the peristyle is so vast, and the rooms so 
numerous and so large, that it is suspected that they 
did not serve to lodge a mere private person ; and it 



^ This mosaic is now in the Vatican Museum. 
" See No. 10 on plan. 



304 ARCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

being known that the Emperors often sojourned at 
Ostia, it has been supposed that they lodged in this 
beautiful dwelling, which has hence been called the 
Imperial Palace.^ This hypothesis is based on no solid 
reason, and it seems more natural to believe that the 
house belonged to some rich banker or great merchant, 
of whom we shall presently show there was no lack 
at Ostia. 

This quarter is not the only one where manifest 
traces of the importance and prosperity of the town are 
met with. The Temple of Jupiter, of which I have just 
spoken, is now entirely freed, and when it had been dis- 
encumbered of the ruins covering its base, it appeared 
in all its splendour. Like most of our churches of the 
Middle Ages, it was composed of two edifices, placed one 
above the other, the lower one serving as a store and 
magazine to the temple itself. The pediment is upheld 
by six Corinthian columns, of which only shapeless frag- 
ments remain. But we still possess some of the elegant 
sculptures that ornamented the frieze, and time has 
respected the threshold of the door, formed of an admir- 
able block of African marble, 4 metres long.^ From 
this we judge of the magnificence of the remainder. 
Before the temple, whose entrance is turned towards the 
south, there extends a little piazza, which was orna- 
mented with porticoes, and on the other side a straight 
street leads towards the Tiber, that is to say, towards the 
centre of movement and business. Like the rue de 



'' See No. 9 on plnn. 

- Among the ruins of Ostia a great quantity of precious marbles lias 
been found. The finest have been used to adorn the confessional of 
St Santa Maria Magjriore. 



OSTIA. 305 

Bivoli, it was bordered on each side with porticoes. The 
brick pillars that supported it have remained in their 
places, and it is easy in thought to people it again with the 
crowd of promenaders who come to shelter themselves 
there in the hot hours of the day. On either side we 
enter large magazines, of which some have been entirely 
cleared, and which must have been very extensive 
and rich.^ This street, including the porticoes, is 15 
metres broad. It is the largest of the Eoman ways yet 
discovered, and nothing in Pompeii gives an idea of it. 

This was the condition of the works when, in 1870, 
a change of Government took place at Eome. The 
excavations at Ostia were not interrupted, but their 
directions merely transferred to Signor Pietro Ptosa, 
known to the public by the discoveries he had just 
made on the Palatine. Signor Ptosa, who is of an 
inventive mind and full of resources, had from the very 
first day a happy idea, which was bound to be fruitful 
of results. He did not care to continue the works of 
Signor Yisconti, whom he replaced, but wished to try 
new ways and turn the excavations in another direction. 
He said to himself that Ostia, being one of the o-reat 
commercial cities of the Empire, and receivino- mer- 
chandise from all quarters of the world, must certainly 
possess warehouses in which to store them, and that 
ordinary custom and good sense both suggested that 
these warehouses must be situated along the Tiber. It is 
there he sought them, and they were easily brought to 
light. The Tiber here forms a semicircle, around which 
the town was built. All trace of the quays has dis- 



1 See No. 7 on plan. 



306 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

appeared, and the water beats against the walls of the 
houses. Some even rest upon solid piles, which advance 
into the river, so that vessels could now enter the cellars 
and deposit their wares there at once. The vast 
vaulted magazines that received the merchandise still 
exist, and those large amphorae are found there, half- 
buried in the earth, for the storacje of "rain and oil. 
They have been much used, and some bear traces of 
having been mended. All these houses open upon a 
street which, in the days of Ostia's prosperity, must 
have been very lively. It is parallel to the river, and 
communicates with it by lanes, or rather, small 
passages. One of these passages is shut by a gate of 
monumental appearance, a circumstance proving that 
even in these commercial quarters there was a certain 
taste for elegance, and that business cares were mingled 
with a feeling for art. The street of the docks, as it 
might be called, has been freed throughout a great 
portion of its length, and can now be followed as far 
as the market of Severus. 

11. 

WHY THE PORT OF OSTIA WAS FOUNDED — THE FREE DIS- 
TRIBUTION OF CORN IN ROME — THE DIFFICULTY OF 
PROVISIONING ROME — CREATION OF THE PORT OF 
CLAUDIUS — THE PORT OF TRAJAN — THE IMPERIAL 
PALACE — THE TOWN OF PORTUS — THE MAGNIFICENCE 
OF OSTIA AND PORTUS. 

While traversing this long street, and passing 
between these two rows of storehouses, broken from 
time to time by glimpses of the Tiber, we find our- 



OSTIA. 307 

selves transported into a world of industry and trade, 
which shows us antiquity in a new light. Ancient 
historians scarcely speak to us of the economic cir- 
cumstances of the communities of their times, and seem 
not to suspect that one might some day he curious to 
know how those communities obtained their sub- 
sistence ; how they exchanged their merchandise for 
that of their neighbours, and whence came the objects 
necessary or agreeable to their lives. These details 
appear to them too low, and liking to show us their 
epoch only by its nobler sides, they do not care to 
descend to them. It is at Ostia, especially, that such 
questions suggest themselves, and it is also there that 
they are most easily solved. The sight of its ruins 
and the memories of its history may give us more than 
one useful hint. 

Tradition attributes the founding of Ostia to a 
Eoman king, Ancus Martins. "It is he," says the old 
poet Ennius, " who built this harbour for the beautiful 
ships, and for the sailors who risk their lives upon the 
waves." ^ When Eome had become mistress of the 
world, the sages who sought to discover the reasons 
that had made her so powerful, congratulated Eomulus 
on not having placed his town on the sea-shore. 
Cicero, after the Greek philosophers, enumerates all 
the dangers to which maritime towns are exposed. He 
tells us that nothing can warn them of the surprises of 
an enemy, who may land on the coast and penetrate 
within their walls without anybody having suspected 

^ Ostia munita est : idern loca navibus pulchris 
Munda/acit ; nautisque mari qucerentibus vitam. 

— Ennii relig., Vahlen, p. 24. 



308 AKCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

his approach. He adds that they are more accessible 
to outside influences, and without defence from the cor- 
ruption of foreign manners. Those who inhabit them 
do not attach themselves to their homes. A continual 
change of desire and hopes carries them far away 
from their country, and even when they do not change 
their abiding place, their always adventurous mind 
travels and runs about the world.^ It is this that lost 
Carthage and the beautiful Isle of Greece, which, in 
the midst of this belt of waves, seem also to swim with 
the institutions and manners of their unstable cities. 
Hence, Cicero infers that Eomulus gave proof of rare 
sagacity by establishing himself in the interior of the 
land, and yet near a river which could bring him the 
wares of neighbouring countries. Whether the founder 
of Eome went through all the fine reasoning attributed 
to him is very doubtful ; but it is certain that it was bene- 
ficial for the new town not to be too far from the sea, and 
that she soon sought to profit by its advantageous vicinity 
for the advancement of her fortune. Her citizens were 
animated by passions which at first sight appear incom- 
patible. They are usually shown under only one of 
their aspects — the finest and most brilliant. They were 
soldiers and conquerors, to whom tradition now only 
attributes heroic attitudes ; but among these demigods 
there were traders and usurers. They were as greedy as 
they were brave. They loved glory ; but they were also 
very partial to money. They knew very well how to cal- 
culate and, under a disdainful exterior, took great care 
not to neglect the good profits to be drawn from com- 

iQic, DeRep., II. 3. 



OSTIA. 309 

merce. It was in order to please them that Ancus 
Martius founded the port of Ostia, where the Tiber 
throws itself into the sea. 

A king of Eome, at that period, was not rich enough 
to undertake costly works at a distance. The founda- 
tion of an arsenal (naval) is attributed to him, but he 
probably built neither harbours nor jetties. At least no 
traces of any have been found.^ The river's mouth 
itself formed the port, and not much pains was taken 
to render it more commodious and safe. Such as it 
was, it served throughout the Eepublic. In its small 
and shallow space, it sheltered not only the mercantile 
but the state navy. Titus Livius informs us that, 
during the Punic Wars, several squadrons left Ostia to 
attack the fleets of Carthage. Yet it was not possible 
always to be content with the old harbour of Ancus 
Martius. Not only must it necessarily become insuffi- 
cient as Eome's commerce grew with her power, but- 
the Tiber ere long began to silt up its approaches. The 
" yellow river," as it was called, carries large quantities 
of mud along with it, and Signer Lanciani calculates 
that, at the Fiumicino mouth, the shore advances into 
the sea more than 3 metres every year, and at the Ostia 
mouth 9 metres. Access to the port therefore became 
more difficult every day, and, towards the end of the 
Eepublic, large ships could scarcely enter it any longer. 

But this was, nevertheless, just the time when Eome 

^ Some remnants of tufa and travertine construction near the house 
called the Imperial Palace, on the side of the Boacciana tower, have 
been assigned to the Navalia of Ostia. But these remains, whatever 
monument they belong to, must be of the last century of the Republic. 
See Ann. de, VInst. de corresp. archeologique, 1868, p. 148. 



310 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

for her subsistence most needed to draw to her the 
vessels of the entire world. How was it that the 
Eoman Campagna, that rich and well-cultivated ground, 
so soon became unable to feed its inhabitants ? Pliny 
the Elder especially accuses the increase of large 
proprietorship : Latifundia perclidere Italiam. These 
wide domains, which had absorbed the heritage of so 
many poor families, contained parks, gardens, porticoes, 
and promenades ; all so much withdrawn from agri- 
culture. In the remainder of the land the owners 
were everywhere induced to replace corn-fields by 
pastures, which produced a more certain revenue, and 
are more easy to work. M. Mommsen adds that 
foreign competition discouraged Eoman agriculturists, 
and that when they saw the merchants of Sicily and 
Egypt bring the wheat of their country in abundance 
and at a low price, they ceased to grow it. Erom that 
moment, Eome, powerful Eome, was at the mercy of 
her neighbours, henceforth living only on produce from 
without, which the sea brought her through a thousand 
dangers. " Every day," says Tacitus, in his energetic 
language, " the Eoman people is the sport of the waves 
and the tempests." ^ At the same time, and as if to 
make the evil incurable, the chiefs of the democracy, 
at length risen to power, paid the people for their 
kindness by a liberality whose consequences were 
necessarily fatal to the Eepublic. G. Gracchus caused 
it to be decided that henceforth the State should under- 
take to partially feed the poor citizens. Corn tickets 

"^ Ann., III. 54: Vita populi romani per incerta vutris et tenvpcsta- 
tum quotidie volvitur. 



OSTIA. 311 

were distributed to them (tesserm frumentarice), which 
allowed them to receive it at half price. It being 
natural not to stop at half measures, some time after the 
Gracchi it occurred to another demagogue to give it for 
nothing. The less people paid, the more the number 
of those who desired to enjoy this favour increased. 
When Csesar took possession of the supreme power 
their number mounted to 320,000. Popular though 
he wished to be, he found this a great deal too many, 
and reduced it to 150,000, still a fairly large number. 
It is said that Augustus would have gone further, 
and for a moment thought of giving nothing to anybody. 
Suetonius reports that, after a famine in which all 
troops of vendable slaves, all bands of gladiators, and 
all foreigners, with the exception of professors and 
physicians, were driven out of Eome, the Emperor 
thought of suppressing the gratuitous distributions 
entirely. He saw that they encouraged idleness, and 
caused the fields to be deserted. He retained them, 
however, for, says his historian, he feared lest, if he dis- 
continued them, some ambitious person might acquire 
the favour of the people by promising their re-introduc- 
tion.^ He even ended by being less strict than Csesar, 
and at his death 200,000 citizens were receiving corn 
from the State.^ This is much, if we reflect that in 
Paris only 113,000 persons are inscribed on the list of 

1 Suetonius, Aug., 42. 

- This number was continued until the Severus dynasty. On all 
questions concerning the distribution of corn, the reader may consult 
a very complete work of M. Otto Hirschfeld, entitled Die Getraid- 
cverv-altung in der romischen Kaiscrzeit, which appeared in the 
Philologies, in 1870. 



312 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

the Assistance PuUique; that, according to the most 
favourable calculations, the population of Eome was 
less by a good third than that of Paris, and that this 
population was composed in great part of slaves who 
had to be fed at their master's expense. Hence we 
should be forced to the conclusion that there were a 
very considerable number of poor in Eome, were it not 
more natural to think that many of those who came to 
receive the prince's alms were not veritable poor, but 
small citizens who were very glad to get this additional 
revenue to enable them to live more at their ease. 
They were not at all ashamed of it. On the contrary, 
they appear to have been proud, since these liberali- 
ties were only granted to people who enjoyed the 
right of citizenship, and we see some who even put in 
their epitaphs " that they shared the distribution of 
corn," in order to establish that they are citizens. 

Henceforth, the provisioning of their capital became 
the Emperors' great care. The Eoman people, so sub- 
missive, so complaisant, and so ready to flatter all the 
caprices of its masters, now only showed energy when 
it feared to see its ration of wheat curtailed. At the 
least delay in the monthly distributions, this populace, 
which usually took everything without complaining, 
mutinied before the palace, or, if the prince was absent, 
proceeded to pillage the house and break the furniture 
of the prefect of Eome. When it was rumoured that 
bread might fall short, one of those mad panics ran 
through the town, such as were seen in the worst days 
of our Eevolution, and which inclined the crowd to 
every excess. The Emperors neglected nothing in 
order to forestall these fears, and, by all kinds of 



OSTIA. 313 

privileges, encouraged the merchants of every nation to 
bring their grain to Italy. Claudius insured great 
advantages to those who built vessels with this object, 
adding to their gains and promising to make good their 
losses.^ All in any way employed in the provisioning 
department of Eome (Annona) were exempted from 
every other office. "They worked," said the law, 
" in the public interest." ^ This department was the 
object of so many distinctions and favours on the 
part of the Government, that it got to be much 
respected in the provinces ; the feeling of its im- 
portance was general, and as its object was to enable 
the "sacred city" to live, it was sometimes called 
Annona sancta.^ Cereals reached Italy from all the 
countries of the world ; but Egypt furnished the 
greater part, more than half of what was consumed 
in Rome. This enormous quantity of corn, collected 
in foreign covmtries by the agents of the Annona, 
was sent to Italy in a special fleet, at what was judged 
the most opportune moment. But, as in Egypt the 
harvest depends upon the overflowing of the Nile, and 
is not always equally abundant, it occurred to Com- 
modus to insure against this unfortunate chance by 
creating a new fleet, which every year went off to 
Carthage in search of the corn of Africa.^ Thus the 
two most fertile countries of the earth were laid under 
contribution. Still, this was not yet enough. Egypt 
and Africa might both be struck with sterility at the 
same time, and precautions had to be taken against a 



1 Suet., Claud., 18. - Dig., L., 6, 5, 3. 

3 Orelli, 1810. * ^igt. Aug. Comm., 17. 



314 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

general scarcity, and insure Eome against a famine 
which would have affected the wliole world. To this 
end, immense granaries were built, which in time of 
plenty were filled against bad years. The prudent 
princes were careful to keep them always full, shutting 
up in them, we are told, enough to enable the whole 
populace of Eome to live during seven years. No less 
was needed, in order to reassure this crowd, so easily 
terrified, and so fearful of starvation.^ 

What explains their alarm is the circumstance that 
the greater part of the corn which provisioned Eome 
could only come to it by sea, for the sea dismayed the 
Eomans. These valiant soldiers were not equally 
intrepid navigators ; like the Greeks they were inclined 
to exaggerate the dangers of the perfidious element, 
and always trembled for the fate of those precious 
vessels which bore their means of life, and which had 
to cross the sea. So the appearance of the Egyptian 
fleet in sight of the coasts of Italy was every year an 
event. Seneca related that when, at Puteoli, those 
light craft called " the messengers " were seen, which 
announced the others, Campania rejoiced. The crowd 
thronged upon the jetties of the harbour, and sought to 
distinguish amid the waves of the sea, and among the 
multitude of the ships those of Alexandria, known by 
the peculiar form of their sails."^ It was much to have 
crossed the Mediterranean and reached Puteoli ; but 
the voyage, however, was not over. They had to 
proceed from Puteoli to Ostia, skirting the shores, 



^ Hist. Aug. Sept., Sev. 8 ; Heliog., 27. 
" Seneca, Epist, , 77. 



OSTIA. 315 

which was attended with much danger, and even when 
they were opposite the Tiber, and in view of Ostia, 
all was not past. The entrance to the river was so 
difficult, the shore so bad and so changing, that more 
than one vessel was miserably wrecked there. Had 
not two hundred vessels one day been seen to perish at 
the same time, in the port itself, where they were not 
protected from the tempest ?^ 

This latter peril might at least have been prevented. 
It would have been sufficient to build at Ostia a safer 
harbour, easy of access for ships, and out of the reach of 
storms. Cpesar, it is said, thought of making it, but 
death prevented him, and the project was abandoned for 
more than a century. It was Claudius, the foolish 
Claudius, who had the honour of carrying it out. 
This poor prince, whom his domestic misfortunes have 
rendered ridiculous, and whose head was not very 
sound, was nevertheless endowed with the taste for 
useful works. His zeal was in this case stimulated 
by a personal danger undergone by him at the begin- 
ning of his reign. When he attained the Empire, 
Eome was cruelly suffering from a famine of which 
his predecessors were accused of being the cause. 
Caligula, who, for his part, was quite mad, had taken 
it into his head to ride on horseback in the gulf of 
Naples. In order to satisfy him, all the vessels and 
ships that were in the ports of Italy had been 
hurriedly assembled; then, by joining them together, 
a large bridge had been formed from Puteoli to 
Bauli, with taverns on the way to stop at, and the 

1 Tacitus, Ann., XV. 18. 



316 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Emperor had enjoyed his caprice. But the vessels 
employed in Caesar's pleasures had not been able to 
go and fetch the corn of Egypt and Africa at the 
favourable time, and Eome lacked bread.^ Caligula 
dying in the interval, the people in their anger blamed 
Claudius, who was not in fault, and were near making 
him pay for the follies of his predecessor. Assailed 
in the midst of the Forum, insulted and beaten, he only 
escaped from the hands of these madmen, thanks to a 
private door which happened to be open, and enabled 
him to return to the Palatine.^ That day Cla.udius was 
very frightened. So, in order to make the arrival of 
the grain easier, and be no more exposed to seditions of 
this kind, he resolved to build a new harbour at Ostia. 
It is said that the engineers, contrary to their custom, 
exaggerated the expenses of the undertaking, in order 
to dissuade him from it.^ But, against his wont, he 
held out against everybody, and, lest the works should 
be negligently conducted, decided to overlook them 
himself. During all the time they lasted he made many 
stays at Ostia. He was there the day when his wife, 
Messalina, took it into her head to be married with 
great ceremony to her lover, Silius, during the life and 
reign of her husband. Tacitus reports that, on the 
morrow of the wedding, while she and her friends were 



^ Suet., Calig., 19 ; Aurel. Vict., Clavd. 

2 Suet., Clmul., 18. 

^ There must have been an important debate on this subject in the 
Senate. Traces of it are found in Quintilian, IIL 21, and II. 8. 
All relating to the ports of Claudius and Trajan has been studied with 
great care by Signor Lanciani in an important article, sulla citta di 
Porto {Ann. de Vlnst. de corresp. arch., 1868). 



z 
< 

< 



Ui ^ 


? 


to 








2 c Q . 
5 ^3 -^ ? 


<<> 





£|^^l 








? .5 ^ 




OSTIA. 317 

engaged in a kind of crazy, or furious bacchanal, one 
of them, for a drunken freak, climbed up a high tree, 
and when the others asked him what he saw, replied 
that there was a dreadful storm coming from Ostia.^ It 
was the husband, who, warned a little late, came to 
trouble the feast. 

The port of Claudius still exists,^ only, owing to the 
progress of the sand, it is now quite inland. Its form 
can, however, be distinguished, and its extent measured. 
It was dug at some distance from Ostia, and above the 
mouth of the Tiber, perhaps with the idea of preventing 
it from being silted up. It was shut in to the right 
and to the left by two solid jetties, " like two arms," 
says Juvenal, "stretched out in the middle of the 
waves." ^ The one to the right, sheltered by its position 
from tempests, was formed of arches, which allowed 
the water of the sea to enter, while that to the left 
was of solid, stout masonry. It had to be strong 
enough to resist the billows, when raised by the south 
wind. Between the ends of the two jetties the 
enormous vessel on which one of the largest obelisks 
of Egypt had just been brought over, was sunk full 
of stone. It became a kind of islet, protecting the 
harbour, and only leaving on either side two narrow 
passages, furnished with iron chains.* On this little 



1 Tacitus, ^7171., XI. 31. 

2 For the plan of the ports of Ostia the map published by Canina 
has been used {Atti delta Pmit ace. di arch., VIII. ). But as regards 
the port of Trajan, care has been taken to correct Canina's plan by 
that of Signor Lanciani, which is more exact {Monum. del 1st, VIII. 9. 

* Juvenal, XII. 77. See No. 2 on plan. 
^ See No. 1 on plan. 



318 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

island a lighthouse was raised — that is to say, a tower 
of several stories, ornamented with columns and pilasters, 
like the one that lit the port of Alexandria. By the 
light of the rays thrown by the beacon upon the waters, 
the ships would direct themselves at night, and enter 
the port at all hours and in all weathers. 

Although, according, to M. Texier, the harbour of 
Claudius measured 70 superficial hectares, it soon 
became too small, and, under Trajan, it was found 
necessary to enlarge it. That indefatigable prince, who 
filled the world with buildings of all kinds, and especi- 
ally useful ones, had given great thought to maritime 
constructions. He had repaired the harbour of Acona, 
and founded that of Centumcellce {Civita VeccMa). At 
Ostia, instead of being content to extend the harbour of 
Claudius, he had a new one dug, which, like the other, 
is still visible inland, and whose form and outlines 
continue to be visible by the undulations of the ground. 
It was a hexagonal basin, nearly 40 hectares in extent, 
lined on all sides by a quay 12 metres broad, with 
granite posts to moor the ships to. These are still in 
their places. The new port formed a continuation of 
the old one, to which it was joined by a canal 118 
metres broad. In order to put them in communication 
with the Tiber, and, by the Tiber, with Eome, another 
canal (fossa Trajana) was dug, which has in course of 
time become a new arm of the river, the only one now 
navigable, and known to us as the Fiumicino. Ships, 
therefore, entered the harbour of Claudius, and thence 
passed into that of Trajan, which formed a sort of 
inner basin. There, if too large to navigate the Tiber, 
their merchandise was unloaded and transported on 



OSTIA. 319 

smaller craft. A curious painting, found at Ostia 
itself, in the tomb of a rich shipowner, shows us how 
the operation was effected. This painting represents 
one of those vessels used for the navigation of the Tiber, 
and called naves caudicarice. Each of them, like those 
of to-day, had its name by which it was called, and 
which was inscribed in red or in black on some 
conspicuous part of it. This one had received the 
name of a divinity, to which, in order to avoid con- 
fusion, had been added that of the proprietor. It was 
called the Isis of Geminius {Isis Geminiana). On the 
poop, above a little cabin, the pilot Pharnaces grasps 
the helm. Towards the middle, the captain Abascantus 
is overlooking the workmen. On the shore, porters, 
bending beneath the weight of sacks of corn, proceed 
towards a small plank, which joins the ship to the 
shore. One of them has already arrived, and is pouring 
the contents of his sack into a large measure (modius), 
while in front of him the mensor frum cntarius, charged 
with the interests of the department, is intent on seeing 
the measure well filled, and holds the sack by its edges, 
in order that nothing may be lost. A little further, 
another porter, whose sack is empty, is sitting down to 
rest, and his whole face breathes an air of satisfaction, 
explained by the word written by the painter above his 
head, " I have finished " {feci). It is a scene of striking 
variety, like those every day witnessed in our seaports. 
The vessel, thus laden, proceeded by the fossa Trajana 
towards the Tiber, and followed the river to Eome. 

With the new ports a new town came into existence. 
It was called, from the name of its founders. Partus 
Trajani, or simply Furtus (now Porto). It must have 



320 AECH.EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

been inhabited eliietiy by mercliants and officials of the 
Anno7ui, Signor Laneiani atiinus that luoiv than two- 
tliirds of the houses of which any remains are h^ft were 
warehouses. They stretch in sever;il rows around the 
ba$in in h">ug regvdar lines, and appear to have been 
coustrueted at tlie s;mie time and upon the same model. 
They must have had two floors, the lower one, where 
corn. wine, and oil were stored, and the upper one, now 
destroyed, doubtless containing the lodgings of the work- 
men and the officials. The corn stores are still iv- 
cognised by the thickness of their walls and by the 
care taken to line them with a strong plastering, to 
preserve them from the damp, which was so much to 
be feaivd in such a mai"shy country.^ It is thought 
that the warehouses of the wine mercliants were situated 
near the Temple of Bacchus, remains of whicli have 
been recovered.- There must have been others for oil 
and marble, since there was a gi*eat commerce in them 
at Ostia. Besides these lai-ge depots, indispensable to 
a seaport, Ti-ajau did not omit to erect edifices destined 
for the embellishment of the town — baths, porticoes, and 
temples.^ L;\stly, being proud of his work, and having 
often to visit it, he built for himself a magnificent 
palace in greuuds separating his harbour from tliat of 
Claudius.* Had this palace been cleared in an in- 
telligent manner, and care been taken to preserve its 

* See Xo. i on plan. All these details aw drawn from the work 
of Siguor L;moi.'uu. cited alcove. 

' See Xo. 5 on plan. 

* At the entrance of the town the ruins of a temple of Portumnus 
are thought to have been njcoguised. See Xo. 6 on plan. 

* See Xo. 3 on plan. 



OSTIA. 321 

remainH, it would doubtless have been one of the most 
curious remains of Roman antiquity. M. Texier, in an 

interestin;^ article, relates how he came upon it, where its 
existence was almost unknown.^ A workman in pursuit 
of a badger, seeing the animal enter a hole, pushed in a 
stick in order to reach it. He soon perceived that the 
opening could be easily enlarged, and when he had re- 
moved a few great stones, he saw that it gave access to a 
spacious hall. M. Texier, on being apprised of what had 
occurred, was the first to enter, and witnessed a fine spec- 
tacle. Within this first ray of light, penetrating depths 
where darkness had reigned for centuries, fluttered a 
whole world of insects who had taken up their abode 
there ; it illumined the bindweeds and the stalactites 
hanging from the roof, and the little pools of water 
shining on the floor. This hall led to another, and that 
to others again. There were so many, says M. Texier, 
and they were so vast, that, in order to find one's way 
in the darkness, it was necessary to guide oneself 
by means of a compass, as one does in a virgin forest. 
From this time forth excavations were executed in the 
palace of Trajan, by order of Prince Torlonia, to whom 
all the land belongs; but, unfortunately, not in a scientific 
interest. As only objects of art were sought after, to en- 
rich the museum of the Lungara, the excavating was done 
in great hurry and secrecy. The harvest once reaped, 
they hastened, according to ancient custom, to cover up 
again what had been brought to light. Signer Lanciani, 



' This article was published in the Revue fjenerale d'arehiteetare de 
Daly, XV. M. Texier was charged by the French Government to 
study the alluvium of the great rivers of the Mediterranean, 

X 



322 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

who was allowed as a great favour to inspect these fine 
ruins, had not even leisure to design their plan. He 
tells us of baths, of temples, of splendid halls, and of a 
small theatre, completely visible, where Trajan doubt- 
less came to refresh himself with the sight of the pan- 
tomime which he was accused of being too fond of ; and, 
lastly, of an immense portico, whose columns, still in 
their places, caused the whole palace to be called in the 
country round, the Palazzo clelle cento Golonne. These 
remains were so fine that they drew cries of admiration 
from the rough peasant who guided Signer Lanciani, 
After having escaped the barbarians of the Middle 
Ages, and the amateurs of the Eenaissance — often more 
terrible than the barbarians — they ended by perishing 
obscurely in our own days, by the order of a great lord, 
clumsily enamoured of antiquities. Quod non fccerunt 
harhari feceritn t Barherini. 

It was not only the emperor's palace which displayed 
such magnificence; we know that the two cities, 
Ostia and Portus, were rich and sumptuous. This is 
sufficiently shown by the fine columns and the admir- 
able statues found there. Tacitus relates that, after the 
burning of Eome, under Nero, temporary shelters were 
hurriedly run up in the Field of Mars and the public 
gardens for the crowd of people who had no longer an 
asylum. These had to be provided, as quickly as pos- 
sible, with furniture, and it was sent for from Ostia.^ The 
town, therefore, possessed much more than was needed 
for the use of the inhabitants. After Nero's death, its 
prosperity increased still further. Independently of 

1 Tacitus, Ann., XV. 39, 



osTiA. 323 

the great works of Trajan, of whicli I have spoken, 
Hadrian and Antoninus embellished Ostia with magni- 
ficent monuments ; Aurelian had a new Forum built 
there, and the weak Emperor Tacitus gave it, out of 
his private fortune, one hundred columns of ISTumidian 
marble, twenty-three feet in height^ — a very extra- 
ordinary piece of liberality at so unfortunate a time. 
As happens in all great industrial towns, corporations 
were very numerous in Ostia. The commercial world 
was divided into trade associations, having their places 
of meeting, their treasury, and their magistrates, and 
among these societies there were some which appear to 
Iiave been very important. Naturally, very large 
fortunes were made, and some of those fortunate 
merchants, who were enriched by their dealings in corn 
or oil, chose to leave great mementoes of themselves. 
After winning opulence, they desired to obtain con- 
sideration, and displayed fabulous generosity in the 
embellishment of their city or the amusement of their 
fellow-burghers. Of such was that Liicilius Gamala, 
who probably lived under the Antoniues, and of whose 
liberalities certain inscriptions inform us.^ He was of 
an ancient family, and his ancestors during several 
centuries filled the most honourable functions at Ostia. 
So they had made him a decurion or municipal 
councillor from his cradle. Later, he became pontiff, 



^ Hist. Aug. Aurel. 45, Tac. 10. 

^ Such is, at least, the opmioii of M. Mommsen, the last authority by 
whom the two large inscriptions concerning Gamala have been studied 
(Ephemeris cpigr., III. p. 319). MM. Visconti, Wilmanns, and 
HomoUe had raised doubts as to one of them ; M. Mommsen thinks 
them both authentic. 



324 AECHiEOLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

quEestor, edile, duumvir — in fine, everything it was 
possible to be in a Eoman colony. After his death, 
he was decreed a public funeral, and statues were 
raised to him; but, on the other hand, by how many 
benefits had he not paid in advance for the honours 
with which they loaded him ? The list, doubtless 
incomplete, is truly incredible ; he had given public 
games, gladiatorial combats, finer and more costly 
than was usual, without choosing to accept the 
sum of money allowed by the city to the magistrate in 
order to help him out with his expenses. He had 
twice invited all the inhabitants of Ostia to dinner, and 
on one occasion he had even feasted them in 117 
dining-rooms.^ He had at his own expense paved a 
street near the Forum, in the space extending between 
two triumphal arches ; he had repaired the temples of 
Vulcan, of the Tiber, and of the Castors, and had 
rebuilt those of Venus, of Fortune, of Ceres, and of 
Hope ; he had presented public weights to the market 
and the wine exchange, and raised a marble tribunal 
in the Forum, and he had built an entire arsenal and 
restored the baths of Antoninus, which had been 
destroyed by fire. Finally, when in a moment of 
distress the city, which had undertaken to furnish the 
State Treasury with a considerable sum, found it difficult 
to keep its engagements, and was forced to sell com- 
munal property, Gamala came to its assistance, and gave 
it, in a single donation, 3,000,000 sesterces (600,000 
francs). What an immense fortune do these liberalities 

^ Plutarch informs us that Caesar, after his triumph, dined the 
people of Rome in 1022 dining-rooms. We thus see that Gamala 
imitated great examples. 



OSTIA. 325 

imply ? Such are the personages who lived in the 
fine houses which we discover at Ostia. It is not 
difficult to understand that they should have made 
them so magnificent and filled them with such fine 
works. 

III. 

THE RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS AT OSTIA — INTRODUCTION 
AND SWIFT PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY — THE 
" XENODOCHIUM OF PAMMACHIUS " — PRELUDE OF 
THE OCTAVIUS OF MINUTIUS FELIX — DEATH OF 
ST MONICA. 

A CIRCUMSTANCE which strikes all who busy them- 
selves with the antiquities of Ostia is the great number 
of temples and sanctuaries of every sort that were built 
there. Historians and inscriptions mention a great 
number of them, and some have been found again in 
excavations lately made. Ostia was evidently a devout 
city. It had a local cultus, to which it appears to have 
been much attached — that of Vulcan. In Ostia the 
pontiffs of Vulcan are chiefs in religious matters. 
They supervise other worships, and grant private 
persons who desire it leave to raise monuments in the 
sacred edifices. But Vulcan is not the only god 
worshipped there. The others are also devoutly prayed 
to, and especially Fortune and Hope, genuine traders' 
divinities ; Castor and Pollux, protectors of seamen ; and 
Ceres, who must have counted many adorers in a city 
enriched by traffic in corn. Foreigners, who formed a 
great part of the population, naturally brought their 
deities with them, and these enjoyed great credit. 
Intercourse with Egypt being very frequent, altars and 



326 ARCITiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

statues were raised to Isis and Serapis. The Asiatic 
worship of the Mother of the Gods was also in great 
esteem, and the inhabitants of Ostia once enjoyed the 
sight of one of those solemn sacrifices, called Taurobolia, 
in which an important personage of the town, placed 
in a sort of cellar whose ceiling was pierced with a 
number of holes, had himself sprinkled with the blood 
of a bull immolated above him, which was to purify 
him of his sins, and assure the welfare of his family 
and of his city. We have still the inscription destined 
to preserve the memory of this religious festival. One 
of the most curious discoveries resulting from the 
excavations of recent years is that of the temple of the 
Mother of the Gods, beside which was found the hall 
of meeting of the religious corporation of the 
Dendropliori} Mithra, the invincible sun, the un- 
seizable god {deus indejjrehensihilis), as his adorers at 
Ostia called him, was also the object of great homage. 
It is known that this worship, which excited piety by 
its secret associations and its mysterious sacrifices, in 
the last days of the Empire attained to great import- 
ance, and that all the vitality of paganism seems then 
to have been gathered up in it, in order to combat the 
new religion. Not only have numerous remains of 
Mithraic monuments been discovered at Ostia, but a 
temple consecrated to the Persian divinity. It is a 
species of domestic chapel in the fine house of which I 
spoke further back,'' It is divided into three parts — 

^ See No. 4 on plan of the excavations of Ostia. This temple to the 
Mother of the Gods, or Cybele, was the subject of a long work by 
Signer C. L. Visconti in the Annales de corresp. arch., 1868, p. 362. 

^ See No. 11 on plai)s of the ruins of Ostia. 



OSTIA. 327 

not by columns, as in the case of Christian basilicas, but 
by differences of level. Each of these was doubtless 
reserved for the faithful of a different rank, and such a 
kind of classification was natural in a religion where 
the hierarchy had so much importance. The chapel 
must have been very elegant, if we may judge from the 
precious marbles with which it was paved. Facing the 
entrance door was the altar, raised four steps above the 
ground, with the genii who represent the two equinoxes,. 
one holding a torch upright, and the other a torch 
reversed. Above the altar was placed, according to- 
custom, the image of a young god with the Phrygian 
cap on his head sacrificing the bull. Some fragments. 
of it were found on the ground. An inscription informs- 
us that the decoration of the altar was executed at the 
cost of C. Cselius Hermeros, priest of this sanctuary. 

Ostia therefore appears to have been a soil quite 
prepared in advance for Christianity. It is known that 
the most religious countries are those where it most 
quickly established itself. Seaports, transit and trading 
towns, where people of all countries met, where temples 
rose to all the gods, and where the religion of the 
East counted most believers, were particularly favour- 
able to it, so its progress was probably very rapid 
at Ostia.'' It soon possessed two episcopal sees, one at 



^The Jews, who slipped in everywhere, must have been very 
numerous at Ostia and Portus. Several Greek inscriptions have 
teen found, bearing the seven-branched candlestick and the formula 
" 'Ev eiprjvrj." One of them mentions the chief of a community, 
to whom it gives the name of "Father of the Hebrews." The 
presence of the Jews at Ostia also explains why Christianity spread 
there so quickly. 



328 ARCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

Ostia itself and the other at Forhis Trajani, which 
was rendered illustrious by St Hippolytus. About 
the time of Theodosius, a friend of St Jerome, the 
rich and noble Pammachius, conceived the generous 
idea of building at Portus a refuge for poor travellers. 
People who had come from Eome and were await- 
ing a favourable wind were received, as were those 
proceeding from all parts to the great city to transact 
their business and seek their fortune. They were so 
happy to find an asylum where they could rest a few 
days after the fatigues of their voyage, that the fame of 
the refuge of Pammachius soon spread throughout the 
entire world. St Jerome says that Britain heard of it, 
and that it was spoken about by the Egyptian and 
the Parthian.^ Signer Eossi thinks he has found it again 
among the ruins of Portus.^ Considerable remnants 
remain, among which a basilica and a large court, 
surrounded by columns taken from other monuments, 
are distinctly recognisable. In the fourth and fifth 
centuries this was the usual manner of building, and 
the only way of making new edifices yet known was 
by despoiling the old ones. As happens in the 
cloisters of the Middle Ages, in the centre of the court 
there was a kind of cistern or well, which bore an 
inscription, now much mutilated, but in which these 
words may be read: "Let him who thirsteth come 
hither and slake his thirst." ^ For us the Christianity 
of Ostia remains associated with two important 



1 St Jerome, EpisL, 77. 10. 

- See No. 7 on plan of imperial harbours. 

^ Kossi, £uU. di arch, crist., 1866. 



OSTIA. 329 

memories which, when visiting these ruins, it is 
impossible to forget : the Prelude of the Octavius and 
the death of St Monica. The Octavius is the first 
attempt at a Christian apology, written by a Eoman 
in the language of Eome, and is to-day still one of 
the most interesting works that can possibly be read. 
Its author, Minutius Felix, was a lawyer and a man 
of the world, who doubtless lived, and must have 
enjoyed himself, in an elegant society. He addresses 
the lettered and the worldly, and desires to make 
himself heard; so he takes care not to present his 
opinions in an arid, dogmatic form that might repel 
the indifferent. He gives them an agreeable turn, 
and seeks to pique the curiosity of his readers by 
a dramatic setting. His book is a dialogue, in which 
he pits against each other, not theological contro- 
versialists, but honest folk amusing themselves on a 
day of leisure. He supposes that one of his old friends 
Octavius, a Christian like himself, comes to see him 
after a long absence, and that, in order to be freer, 
and belong to each other more, they leave Eome for 
a few days, in company with a mutual friend, Csecilius, 
who has remained a pagan. This is during the vintage 
holidays, a time when, the tribunals being closed, 
lawyers are in vacation. So all three start for Ostia, 
" a charming spot," where the mind enjoys repose and 
the body finds health again. One morning, as they 
are wending their way towards the sea, "yielding 
themselves up to the pleasure of treading the sand, 
which gives beneath their feet, and of breathing that 
light breeze which restores vigour to the tired limbs," 
Caecilius, the pagan, seeing a statue of Serapis, salutes 



330 AKCH-EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

it, according to custom, by raising liis hand to liis lips. 
This religious act wounds Octavius, who cannot forbear 
saying to the other Christian : " It is ill, my brother, 
to leave a faithful friend in this gross error. Will 
you allow him to throw kisses to statues of stone, 
which do not deserve this honour, all covered though 
they be with garlands and sprinkled with oil ? " At 
first no one answers, and the walk is continued. Wlien 
one has visited the beach at Ostia, it is easy to re-tread 
in thought the way the friends must have pursued 
together. They doubtless traversed that long street 
skirting the Tiber, or some other parallel to it. Then, 
having reached the spot where the houses left off and 
nothing restricted the view, they enjoyed the sight of 
the immense horizon. They walked on the wet sand 
along the shore, among the boats that had been drawn 
up upon the beach, beside children amusing themselves 
by making pebbles rebound upon the water. The two 
Christians, whose souls are tranquil, give themselves 
up entirely to the pleasure of these sights ; but Caecilius 
looks at nothing ; he is silent, sombre, and preoccupied ; 
the few words he has just heard trouble him ; he wishes 
for an explanation ; he asks to be enlightened. Then 
all three sat down on the great stones that protect 
the jetty, and, facing this calm sea, under this bright 
sun, they begin to commune together of those great 
questions which were troubling the world. Is 
Minutius indeed telling us a romance ? In any case 
it is a romance much resembling truth. I doubt not 
but that many a conquest made by Christianity in 
the second century was brought about by similar 
incidents, and that often a word, flung as it were by 



OSTIA. 331 

chance, touched a well-inclined soil, which finally 
surrendered after a few conversations such as those 
that took place on the beach at Ostia, and have been 
reported for us by Minutius. 

The death of St Monica is the other great memory 
recalled by the ruins of Ostia. St Augustine has 
related the circumstances of it in one of the finest 
passages of his Confessions. Brought back, after 
terrible struggles, to the faith of his mother and of 
his youth, he had just received baptism at the hands 
of St Ambrose. Being resolved to break altogether 
with the world, and wishing to leave for ever that 
chair of rhetoric he had been at first so proud of, he 
had warned the Milanese " to seek for their children 
another vendor of words." He was returning to Africa 
with his mother, and waiting at Ostia for favourable 
weather for the passage. Augustine, who was poor, 
had probably taken lodgings in some inferior hostelry 
in the middle of the old town. Maybe it was only 
the rich who could have their dwellings built in the 
favoured sites skirting the shore. He only speaks to 
us of a window looking out upon a peaceful garden. 
It is there that the memorable scene took place, since 
immortalized by a great painter, and which will never 
be forgotten by all those who, whatever they may be 
told, cannot imagine that these anxious preoccupations 
as to the future are idle trifles. Seated near this 
window, and gazing heavenward, the mother and son, 
seeming to feel their parting near, were communing 
together of those hopes of another life then engrossing 
the minds of all. " They conversed," says St Augustine, 
" with ineflable sweetness, forgetful of the past, turned 



332 AECH^OLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

to the future, and with lips stretched toward that 
immortal spring where the weary soul finds refresh- 
ment. Separating themselves by degrees from the 
things of the body, and rising more and more in 
thought towards that life which endeth not, ' at length 
with a bound of the heart, they touched it.' " A few 
days after this conversation Monica died, and, in dying, 
gave the last and strongest proof of the change wrought 
in her by the ardour of her beliefs. Her son tells us 
that hitherto, like all persons of her time and country, 
she had been very anxious as to her sepulture. She 
had prepared a tomb near that of her husband, and her 
greatest consolation was to think that death would 
unite her again to him whose inseparable companion 
she had been during life. Yet, when she felt herself 
dying, she, of her own accord, renounced it. " You will 
bury your mother here," she told her children, and 
when asked whether she did not dread to leave her 
body so far from her country, she replied : " Nothing is 
far from God, and it is not to be feared that at the end 
of the ages He should be unable to find the place where 
He must raise me to life again." Augustine did as his 
mother requested, and buried the holy woman in one 
of the churches of Ostia. 

In these days it requires a violent eSbrt to re-awaken 
those great memories upon the silent shore. All is so 
changed, all seems so calm, so dead, that it is hard to 
picture the time when it was animated by the move- 
ment of life and the stir of business. And yet this 
solitude contained one of the most bustling towns of 
the world, and the place of this desert was filled by 
fertile fields. Where now only arid sands are seen, 



osTiA. 333 

there used to be delightful shades and gardens growing 
luscious fruits. It is related that the Emperor Albinus, 
who passed for a refined epicure, held the melons of 
Ostia in high esteem. Pliny the Younger has vaunted 
the beauty of this shore, thronged with pleasure-houses 
as large as towns and rich as palaces ; now one scarcely 
sees at far distances apart a few miserable cabins. In 
our days there is not a Eoman who would consent to 
stay for one short hour after sundown upon these 
plague- stricken shores. "We have just seen in the 
Octavhts that, in the second century, people came 
hither from Eome to seek repose and health. The 
isola sacra, where a few scanty herds of buffaloes 
pasture, was one of the most lovely spots on earth, so 
full of verdure and flowers that it was looked on as 
one of the best-loved abodes of Venus. At Eome I 
have often heard it said that this ancient prosperity 
might return ; that by better cultivation the country 
would be rendered healthy ; that it would be easy 
to drive away the fever by draining off the stagnant 
waters, and that one might succeed in reclaiming a 
whole large useless territory. It seems to me that this 
ambition is of a nature to tempt Italy. The Italians 
have this good fortune, in addition to so many others, 
that, in order to spread, they have no need to attack 
their neighbours, and may make conquests without 
leaving home. They are quite right in affirming that 
they have not yet redeemed all their ancestral heritage ; 
but this part of themselves of which they have not 
resumed possession, this Italia irredenta which absorbs 
and impassions them, is at home, in their country, at 
their doors. Near their "reat towns so fraught with 



334 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

life and beauty, they will find, if they choose, dead 
cities to revive. Instead of maintaining that martial 
state which exhausts them, and listening for the least 
sounds of external discord, in order to turn them to 
account, they may busy themselves with repeopling 
their deserts, in tilling their sterile lands — in short, 
in giving back to Italy all those rich domains which 
the negligence or barbarity of preceding ages has lost 
her. This is an enterprise that will expose them to no 
risks, and which the world will applaud. 



CHAPTEIl VI. 



POMPEII. 



THE EXCAVATIONS AT POMPEII UNDER SIGNOR FIORELLI — 
MEMENTOES OF ITS ANCIENT HISTORY THAT HAVE BEEN 
FOUND — WHAT REMAINS TO BE CLEARED — OUGHT 
THE WORKS THAT HAVE BEEN BEGUN TO BE CON- 
TINUED ? — RECENT DISCOVERIES — THE FRESCO OF 
ORPHEUS — ACCOUNT BOOKS OF THE BANKER JUCUN- 
DUS — THE NEW " FULLONICA." 

Although Pompeii has been much spoken about, much 
remains to be said of it. The excavations continue, 
and have not ceased to be fruitful. They have, since 
1863, been directed by Signer FiorelK, one of Italy's 
most distinguished archseologists, a piece of rare good 
fortune which has produced the most happy results. 
Persons who have not been to Pompeii for some years 
past ynW be struck to see the new aspect assumed 
by the ancient town. Not only does everything 
appear better ordered, and the work carried on in a 
more regular manner, but when one walks along the 
streets, enters the houses by the open doors, and goes 
over a quarter entirely cleared, one feels that the 
illusion has become easier and more complete, and 



336 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES, 

that one may enter into the life of ancient times 
with even greater facility than was formerly the case. 
This progress is due to Signor Fiorelli, and to the 
resolution made by him to break with old routine 
and proceed by new methods. We must again repeat 
that the old-fashioned mode of excavation has been 
entirely discarded by him. The people who, on the 1st 
April 1 748, began to turn over the ashes that for seven- 
teen centuries had covered Pompeii, had only oneobject 
— the desire to find masterpieces to enrich the king's 
museums. Hence, the way in which the works 
were carried on, is easily explained. Excavation 
proceeded by chance, and at various places at once, 
according to the hope that existed of some piece of 
good fortune. If nothing was found, the excavation, 
after a little searching, was abandoned, and they went 
elsewhere. "When the litter became troublesome it 
was carelessly thrown on the houses already laid bare, 
which were thus given back to the darkness whence 
they had just been drawn. As for those left in the 
light of day, no care was taken to preserve them. 

The frescoes that had not been judged worthy of 
transference to the museum of Portici or of Naples 
remained exposed to the wind and the sun, which 
quickly effaced their colours. The destruction of the 
mosaics was completed by the feet of travellers and 
workmen : the walls became cracked, and ended by 
falling. A few men of knowledge and understanding, 
like the Abb^ Barthelemy, indeed, complained of the 
deplorable manner in which the excavations were 
conducted ; but since, after all, they produced master- 
pieces, and, thanks to them, the museum at Naples had 



POMPEII. 337 

become one of the richest iu the world, the malcon- 
tents were not listened to. As a matter of fact, and 
despite the slight increase of care induced by course 
of time, this barbarous system lasted down to our own 
days. 

Signor Fiorelli changed all this. In his reports 
he said, and repeated, that the chief interest of the 
excavations of Pompeii was Pompeii itself; that the 
discovery of works of art must only be considered 
as secondary to it ; that they were seeking above all 
things to resuscitate an ancient Eoman city which 
should give us back the life of former times ; that, 
for its teachings to be complete, it must be seen entire 
and with its meanest old houses ; and that they sought 
to know, not only the dwellings of the rich, adorned 
with their elegant frescoes, and lined with their rich 
marbles, but also the abodes of the poor, with their 
common utensils and coarse caricatures. With this 
aim in view, all became important, and it was no 
longer allowable to neglect anything. So Signor 
Fiorelli decided, before pushing the works further, to 
go over those of his predecessors. Treading every- 
where in their footsteps, he had the walls which threat- 
ened to fall propped up and supported, raised those 
that were already down, protected the frescoes and the 
mosaics, and, at the same time, busied himself with the 
definitive clearing of all that had been covered up again 
with rubbish, or had not been excavated. This was a 
tiresome and apparently unprofitable undertaking, for 
he was certain not to find much that was new in 
ground which had already been explored. But in order 
to know the city as a whole, it was necessary that 

y 



338 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

everything should be cleared and brought to light. 
Sigaor Fiorelli therefore decided not to dazzle 
public opinion by the announcement of unexpected 
discoveries for some time to come/ and to prosecute in 
silence a task more useful than brilliant. It took him 
twelve years to accomplish this seemingly ungrate- 
ful work; but the result amply repaid him for all 
the time and labour spent upon it. He who formerly 
visited Pompeii was stopped at every moment by 
mountains of cinders and islands of rubbish which 
hindered locomotion, blocked the streets, and inter- 
rupted his walks. Even about the Forum and quite 
close to the theatre, houses remained which had not been 
excavated. These breaks have now disappeared. The 
discovered part of Pompeii is entire. It is all spread out 
before our eyes, with its smallest alleys, its meanest 
houses, and its most humble shops, and walking through 
it one may obtain a very true and complete idea of life 
in ancient times. It must be owned that such a result 
deserved purchasing with some years of obstinate toil. 

This labour of patience and detail led Signer Fiorelli 
to make some curious discoveries, of which a word must 



^ Yet it must not be forgotten tliat it was Signor Fiorelli who 
thought of running plaster into the void left by the bodies of the 
Pompeians in decaying. On completion of the operation the plaster 
gives the image of the dead exactly. It is, in fact, conceivable that 
when the damp ash which was spread over Pompeii became cool, it 
should have preserved the forms of the objects which it covered over, 
like a mould. Thus it is that it has been found possible to assemble 
in the little museum, placed at the entrance of the town, several people 
who are reproduced just as they were when death struck them ; some 
wrestling against it in despair, others yielding without resistance. It 
is a striking sight, and one of the greatest curiosities of Pompeii, 



POMPEII. 339 

be said. Pompeii, at first sight, produces the effect of a 
new and improvised town. Everything in it seems to be 
of the same character and the same period. It is, in fact, 
known that after the earthquake of the year 63, which 
greatly damaged it, its reconstruction was commenced, 
and that it was very far advanced when, sixteen years 
later, the town was covered up by Vesuvius. It was 
the age of Nero, a terrible artist, who had a furious 
taste for building, who wished to renew everything, and 
who, it is said, set fire to Eome in order to have the 
pleasure of re-making it again, according to the fashion 
of the day. The manias of the master, even when he 
was called Nero, were the Empire's law, and since the 
Pompeians had to repair their city, the occasion was 
used to change and rejuvenate everything. The temples 
were enlarged, the old buildings adorned with new 
fagades, the walls covered with stucco or incrusted with 
marbles, and pillars of tufa were replaced by columns 
of travertine. " In short," says M. Mssen, " they were 
about to quite modernise the town, as during the old 
regime they used to disfigure venerable cathedrals 
under pretence of repairing them, and as the second 
Empire rebuilt Paris and the old towns of Prance 
according to line." ^ It is these restorations which now 
especially strike visitors. Passing quickly along, they 
only perceive stucco or marMe linings and the solemn 
faqades hastily erected in the time of Nero, without 
having time to see that the new buildings have covered 
up old foundations, without destroying them. Signer 
Piorelli, who looked at everything closely, reached those 

\ Nissen, Pompeianischen Stvdien, 360, 



340 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

solid basements that survived the earthquake and re- 
sisted the eruption of Vesuvius. Beneath the town of 
the second century he finds at least two yet more 
ancient ones, whose history he traces out for us. The 
oldest goes back to the sixth century before the 
Christian era. At that time some families, come from 
no one knows where, took possession of the ground 
extending from the Sarnus to the sea. They enclosed 
this ground with walls formed of enormous blocks, taken 
from the neighbouring mountains, and placed one upon 
the other, without cement. In this space, too vast for 
them, the new inhabitants settled at their ease. Their 
houses, whose foundations still exist, consisted only of a 
covered court, around which were distributed the apart- 
ments. Each habitation was placed in the midst of a 
small plot of ground {hceredium) tilled by the family. 
The town, therefore, was not at that time an agglomera- 
tion of houses crowded one against the other, but an 
assemblage of families living on their lands under the 
shelter of a common wall.^ Two centuries later, the 
Samnites came. They were an intelligent and civilised 
people, and soon allowed themselves to be won over to 
the arts of Greece. They built a real town, with very 
fine monuments, of which some still exist, together with 
the inscriptions placed on them by the magistrates. 
Pompeii then attained a high degree of wealth and 
culture. M. Nissen bids us remark that she imitated 

^ Signor Fiorelli has summarised his ideas on the first times of 
Pompeii and on its history in the introduction to his Dcscrizione di 
Poinpeii. His opinions are discussed and completed by M. Nissen in 
his Pompeianischen Studien and in the Pompdanisehcn Sdtrdge of M, 
Mau. 



POMPEII. * 341 

the Greeks much more frankly than Eome ventured to 
do at the same period. Thus, she had a palestra, 
where her young men came to exercise themselves, like 
those of Sparta or of Athens ; she had a stone theatre, 
while as yet the Eomans only built wooden stages that 
did not survive the games given upon them ; and she 
openly raised a temple to Isis, who was only ofl&cially 
admitted to Eome at the period of the Flavii. It was, 
then, at this point of time, and long before she had 
become Eoman, that Greek civilisation planted itself so 
deeply there. The loans which the little town so will- 
ingly contracted with foreign lands did not prevent it 
from highly cherishing its independence, which it de- 
fended bravely against the Eomans during the social 
war, and Scylla had great trouble to subdue it. When it 
had been conquered, he sent three cohorts of veterans 
with their families thither, who formed a colony bear- 
ing his name (Colonia Cornelia). Its prosperity did not 
suffer from the new regime, which it accepted with a 
good grace. Some years later, Cicero, eulogising Cam- 
pania, said the towns there were so elegant, so rich, and 
so well built, that the inhabitants had a right to laugh 
at the poor old cities of Latium ; and among the beauti- 
ful towns, of which the Latins had cause to be jealous, 
he placed Pompeii.^ 

Since the preliminary works of Signer Fiorelli have 
been finished, and we have a more exact and complete 
plan of the quarters excavated up to the present time, 
it has been possible to recognise better than was 
formerly the case, that the town is regularly built, 

'' Cic, De lege agrar., II. 35. Note that he does not speak of 
Herculaneum. 



342 Technological rambles. 

and that, in general, its streets are well outlined and 
cut each other at right angles. It must not be thought 
that this regularity was introduced into Pompeii by the 
architects who rebuilt it after its first disaster. Signor 
Fiorelli thinks that it already existed in the primitive 
town. The old Italians who first settled on the banks 
of the Sarnus had a particular method of constructing 
their towns, and usually built them on the same plan. 
After forming the boundary, they traced two perpendi- 
cular lines, the one from north to south, called the 
cardo, the other from east to west, called the decumanus : 
these were the two main streets, on which, later on, the 
others came to be branched. At Pompeii the decumanus 
and the cardo are still visible, and their direction being 
settled, and it being certain that the regularity re- 
marked in the discovered quarters was repeated in the 
others, it is possible, with the help of the past known 
to us, to form an idea of the past which we do not 
know. Thus, Signor Fiorelli could approximately 
imagine a sort of plan of the whole. According to the 
extent of the ground and the direction of the streets, 
he divides it into nine quarters, or, as the Eomans used to 
term it, into nine regions. Of these nine regions three 
are entirely cleared, three entirely covered up, and of 
the three others only a small part is known. Striking 
a balance, therefore, the part of Pompeii still to be dis- 
covered, and whose disinterment is being vigorously 
pushed forward, amounts to rather more than half.^ 
But is it well to do so ? Would it not be better, 



^ According to Signor Ruggiero, the entire surface of Pompeii must 
be about 662,000 square metres. Of these, 264,424 have been cleared. 



POMPEII. 343 

instead of entering upon fresh excavations, to stop and 
divert this vigorous effort of research to newer and 
richer grounds ? This is what Beule maintained, with 
great energy, in one of the best books ever written 
by him.i Beule was even more an artist than 
an archseologian. Obscure finds that only serve to 
solve some historical problem, and render the past 
more Kving, gave him much less pleasure than the 
discovery of the statues, the mosaics, and the fine 
friezes which charmed his delicate taste. Now, he 
remembered that every time they had dug under 
Portici, or in the depths that conceal Herculaneum, 
they had returned with admirable works of art. " It is 
there, then, that you must dig," said he; "you must 
concentrate your efforts and your resources upon these 
untouched ruins which promise so many treasures." 
And with the ardour which he was wont to display 
in the propagation of his opinions, he invited all the 
friends of the Arts and all the rich amateurs of Europe 
to unite in order to cover the expenses of these fruitful 
excavations. 

Should this appeal be ever heard, and bankers and 
antiquaries bring Signer Fiorelli the wherewithal to 
resume the costly works at Herculaneum, I believe he 
will right willingly accept the generous offering, and 
be glad to direct part of his workmen to this side.^ 

1 Le dravie du Visuve. 

2 Public attention has lately been recalled to tbe excavations at 
Herculaneum in a somewhat unforeseen manner. At Pompeii, a kind of 
commemoration was being celebrated of the catastrophe which took 
place in 79, that is to say, eighteen hundred j'ears jireviously. On 
that occasion the excavation committee published a volume of notices 
and memoirs, entitled Fompcii e la regions sotterrata dal Vesiivio 



344 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

But I doubt whether, even in such a case, he would 
be induced entirely to give up Pompeii — that is to say, 
perhaps modest, but certain and easy success, for 
difficulties and risks. Why, indeed, should he consent 
to this, and by what reason could the abandonment be 
justified ? Pompeii, says Beule, has yielded about all 
that can be expected of it. In this new town, rebuilt 
and decorated in sixteen years by the same artists, 
everything is alike. Supposing the excavations to be 
as fortunate in the future as in the past, only the same 
house will always be met with, built of the same 
materials, divided in the same manner, with its atrium 
and its peristyle, its rooms for the slaves and for the 
masters, its apartments private and public. He adds 
that even this house itself, studied so many times, this 
elegant house in which there was always the hope of 
coming upon some precious piece of furniture, will not 
be found again. The rich quarters, i.e. those sur- 
rounding the Forum and the theatres, have been ex- 

iieir anno LXXIX. Among these memoirs is a very curious one by 
Signor Comparetti, concerning the villa of Herculaneum, where the 
famous Greek and Latin papyri were found, and which he thinks 
belonged to a rich Roman, L. Piso Cffisarinus, Ctesar's father-in-law. 
We know that this villa was full of marvellous works of art, and that 
the finest bronze busts which we admire in the Museum of Naples 
were discovered there. In another memoir, quickly following that of 
Signor Comparetti, Signor de Petra, studying the reports of the 
engineers who directed the excavations in 1750, proved that only part 
of the villa was then cleared, so that, by taking up the works again, 
we should have some chance of perhaps also reaping a rich harvest. 
It must be confessed that the hope of finding some bronze or marble 
statue, like the Drunken Faun or the .ffischines, is tempting enough 
to induce the resumption of the excavations so unfortunately inter- 
rupted. 



POMPEII. 345 

cavated, and there is now little chance of finding any 
houses but poor ones : is it worth while to spend time 
and money for the sake of tumbledown hovels ? 

Signor Fiorelli might reply that, after all, these 
hovels too have their interest. We know the rich 
classes of antiquity pretty well. It is especially of 
them that history tells us, acquainting us with their 
ways of thought and living. On the other hand, 
neither poets nor historians have busied themselves 
much with the poor. What a service Pompeii would 
render us by putting before our eyes a sort of living 
picture of the popular classes of the Empire ! Thus, 
even if the certainty existed that only poor habitations 
remain, it would not be a reason for suspending the 
excavations. But M. Beule's prediction has not been 
fulfilled. We have gone on finding as many elegant 
houses in the new quarters of Pompeii as in the old 
ones, and within the last few years discoveries have 
been made as curious as those of former times. No 
better answer can be made to those who are inclined 
to think Pompeii an exhausted mine, and who seem to 
believe that it can no longer repay us for our trouble, 
than to show them by some examples^ that the latest 
excavations there have not been less fortunate than 
the others. 

Firstly, they have not left off finding interesting 
paintings. There is scarcely a house but contains 
one, and the catalogue drawn up by Signor Sogliano 
of all those discovered within twelve years ^ includes 

^ Signor Sogliano's memoir is contained in the work I have just 
spoken of, and which was published on the occasion of the com- 
memoration of the destruction of Pompeii. 



346 AECH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

over eight hundred, some of which are very curious. 
Space being limited, I will only instance the fresco of 
Orpheus, not that it is more remarkable than the rest, 
but because a picture much resembling it was found 
in one of the Christian cemeteries at Eome. The two 
differ little, except as to their dimensions. That 
of Pompeii measures about 2h metres. Consequentl}^ 
the details are better marked and more visible than 
in the painting of the Catacombs, which is smaller, 
and has been much effaced by time, yet the general 
aspect of which is the same. Orpheus is represented 
sitting, a light chlamys falls from his shoulders over 
his limbs, he plays with the plectrum upon the nine- 
stringed lyre. At his feet the Pompeian painter has 
crowded very different kinds of animals — a lion, a tiger, 
a panther, a boar, a deer, and a hare. Further on, 
there are trees and rocks drawn by the charm of his 
voice, and a brook which stops in its course to listen 
the longer. The Christian artist has suppressed all 
these animals and replaced them by two sheep. He 
doubtless wished to recall the memory of the Good 
Shepherd, who was the usual, and, as it were, official 
image of Christ, in the first times of the Church, But 
as a whole, he had reproduced the pagan fresco. He 
could do so without scruple ; that beautiful face, so 
grave, so sweet, which seems wholly engrossed with 
the subject of the songs, without percei^dng the strange 
effects they produce, has in itself something religious ; 
Christianity had nothing to change, in order to adapt 
it to its worship and its dogmas, so, as we have already 
seen, it did not hesitate to represent Christ under the 
same forms as the pagans had given to the singer of 



POMPEII. 347 

Thrace. Comparison of the Pompeian Orpheus with 
that of the Catacombs shows manifestly with what 
facility the rising Church borrowed antique types, and 
the importance which must be given to the imitation 
of Greek models in the birth of Christian art. 

We must linger somewhat longer over a very curious 
and unforeseen discovery, made in the house of the 
banker L. Csecilius Jucundus. At first sight this house 
does not appear much better than others ; on the 
contrary, it is built in a rather narrow street, and is of 
modest appearance. Jucundus does not care for ex- 
teriors, and perhaps even, like a prudent man, he was 
glad not to blazon his fortune too much. But on 
entering we soon perceive that we are in the house 
of a rich man. The reception-hall is adorned with 
mythological pictures, and in the peristyle a great hunt 
is depicted. This painting is not, however, the most 
curious thing found in the peristyle. In searching 
above the embrasure of a door they found, in a well- 
hidden spot, the Pompeian banker's account-books. 
This was a great novelty, for books seem to have been 
very rare in Pompeii; while at Herculaneum, where 
only a few houses are known, a library was discovered 
almost at once. During all the time (more than a cen- 
tury) that Pompeii has been in course of excavation, 
neither waxen tablets, rolls of papyrus, books of parch- 
ment, nor archives of any kind have been found. This 
is not easy to explain.^ Doubtless, Pompeii was not a 

^ The most likely explanation is that the hot ash which covered up 
Pompeii consumed the papyri, whereas the torrent of mud that flowed 
over Herculaneum, and which rose to a height of 20 metres above 
the town, preserved them. 



34S ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

seat of study, and the learned could not have been 
numerous there. Yet books are not out of place, even 
in pleasure towns. If one of our beautiful sea or 
thermal-spring residences, whither one does not go to 
study, were to be swallowed up by a cataclysm, I 
suppose that, on bringing it to light again, not many 
works of science, but a good collection of novels and 
newspapers, would be found. Supposing there were no 
philosophical books at Pompeii, as at Herculaneum, the 
poets who sang of love must at least have been read 
there, since their verses are everywhere pencilled on the 
walls, and it would seem as if one ought long since to 
have found some copies of the elegies of Propertius or 
of 0\dd's Art of Love, but all has been lost. The only 
indication pointing to the conclusion that the Pom- 
peians sometimes bought books, and that, consequently, 
they must have had them in their houses, is the sign 
of a bookseller's shop, near the Stabian gate, which 
appears to have been carried on by four partners. 
Unfortunately, if the shop remains, the books have 
disappeared. So the joy which was felt may be easily 
understood when, on ord July 1875, it was seen 
that not a real library, but what might be called 
the pocket-book of Banker Jucundus, had been 
discovered. 

It was a rather large box, placed in a sort of niche 
above a door, and containing a large number of the 
tablets (tabulce) on which the Eomans wrote the rough 
copies of their business papers, their little unimportant 
notes, the first draft of the books they composed — in 
short, all their current writings, reserving parchment and 
papyrus for what they desired definitively to preserve. 



poMPEn. 349 

These tablets usually consisted of two or three thin 
slips of wood, joined together like book covers, and 
spread over inside with a light coating of wax. This 
was written on with an iron stylet. Yet it is a thing so 
frail, so delicate, so little made to endure, that has sur- 
vived accidents of every kind which marble and iron 
could scarcely resist. One asks oneself by what miracle 
— in the midst of a city submerged and engulfed under 
that rain of stones and ashes which covered all the 
houses — this wood and this wax have not been destroyed, 
and one is still more astonished that, after so terrible 
an adventure, they should have been able to pass 
through eighteen centuries of darkness and damp 
without finally perishing. As a matter of fact, the 
Pompeian tablets reached us in a very sorry plight. 
When found, nothing was left but an assemblage of 
calcined cinders, and scarcely were they touched by the 
rays of that sun which they had not seen for eighteen 
hundred years, when they were seen to split on every 
side and fall into crumbs on contact with the air. The 
transport of these precious remains to Naples had to 
be effected with infinite precautions. There, in those 
work-rooms where, with admirable patience, the un- 
rolling and reading of the papyri of Herculaneum are 
carried on, they set to work to separate the tablets 
one from the other, to join the scattered fragments, 
to open them out, and, when fortunately the wax was 
not melted, to decipher the traces left in it by the 
iron stylet. Thanks to Signor de Petra, the clever 
and learned Director of the Museum at Naples, the 
success attained was greater than had been hoped 
for. He superintended the work, and, when it was 



350 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

accomplished, first made known its results to the 
public.^ 

Are these results commensurate with the trouble 
they cost? It must be remarked that discoveries of 
this kind have always been followed by disappointment. 
We begin by expecting too much, and very naturally 
the reality falls short of our hopes. After all, it was 
not to be supposed that a banker's house should con- 
tain many works of first-class literature, and it is not 
at all surprising that account-books should have been 
found there. The box of Jucundus contained 132 
signed receipts, and of which 127 have been de- 
ciphered, wholly or in part. Almost all these receipts 
have reference to sales by auction, and complete 
our knowledge of its mechanism. Sales by auction 
{audio), which now serve us for the purpose of getting 
rid of our books, our furniture, and our pictures, after 
having been reserved among the Eomans for forced 
sales — that is to say, those which the State made of the 
goods of the condemned, or creditors of those of their 
debtors — had finished by being used for every other 
kind of sale. Signer de Petra remarks that this 
method of selling had become so general that the 
words auctionari or auctionem facere were regarded as 
mere synonyms of vendere. In important towns there 
were large halls with courts and porticoes expressly built 



^ Signer de Petra's memoir, entitled Le tavolette cerate di Pow.pei, first 
appeared in the collection of the Academy of the Lineei. Since then, 
M. Mommsen has studied the tablets, especially from the juridical 
point of view, in an important article in the Hermes, XII. p. 88. In 
France M. Caillemer has busied himself with it in the Hevue historique 
de droit fran<^ais (July 1877). 



POMPEII. 351 

for sales of this kind, called atria auctionaria. He who 
presided at the sale — the chief auctioneer, as we should 
call him — had to know how to keep accounts and draw 
up a regular report, so a professional banker was 
often appointed to the office. This is how, at Pompeii, 
Caecilius Jucundus came to be charged with it. The 
presidency of the banker had, besides, another advan- 
tage. When the buyer, who was obliged to settle at 
once, had not the needful sum at his disposal, the 
banker advanced it. So in transactions of this nature 
he made two kinds of profits — first, the commission 
levied on the total proceeds of the sale in payment 
of his trouble, and then the interest required of the 
buyer for the money lent to him. Our tablets which, 
with a few unimportant differences, are all written 
the same way, contain the receipt of the seller to the 
banker who furnishes the funds, and represents the 
real buyer of whom he is the intermediary. These 
documents have especial interest for lawyers. Others, 
unfortunately in too small numbers, give us curious 
information touching the finances of Roman muni- 
cipalities, and the way in which they administered 
their properties. They are signed by the town trea- 
surer, and show us that Csecilius, who was not satisfied 
with the emolument accruing to him from sales by 
auction, also undertook to manage the communal 
estates. He had thus taken farm pastures, a field, 
and a fuller's shop belonging to the municipality, per- 
haps either sub-letting or working them himself. Such 
were the means hit upon by the banker of a small town 
in order to enrich himself. The receipts of Jucundus 
enable us to seize in its essence a profession of which 



352 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

we know but little. They do not, therefore, lack im- 
portance, but, above all, they have revived in the learned 
world the almost lost hope of one day finding among 
the ruins of Pompeii some library, or at least some 
archive a little richer and more lettered than that of 
the banker Jucundus. 

Facing the banker's house, a fullonica, or fuller's 
shop, was brought to light. Several others were already 
known, and especially one celebrated on account of the 
interesting paintings that were found in it, represent- 
ing in a very clever, spirited manner all the operations 
of the trade. This trade was then very important. In 
the capital and in the provinces all Eoman citizens who 
respected themselves wore the toga. It was the garment 
of elegance, the official and ceremonial dress, which char- 
acterised and distinguished the masters of the world — 

" Bomanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam." 

But if the majestic fulness of the toga, the elegance of 
its folds, and the brilliancy of its whiteness, above all, 
when cast into relief by a purple band, made it one of 
the finest dresses ever worn, by men, it had the double 
disadvantage of being inconvenient and of easily getting 
soiled. When it was desired that it should be cleaned, 
and do honour to him who was to wear it, they sent it 
to the fuller's. There they began by throwing it into 
tubs full of water, chalk, and other ingredients. Then 
it was washed, not as it is now done, with the hands, 
but by treading (Joulant) it with the feet. The work- 
men charged with this task performed in the tub a 
sort of trois temps movement {tripudium), like that of 
the wine-maker pressing the grape. By a strange 



POMPEII. 353 

accident the tripudium became the religious and national 
dance of the ancient Eomans. This it was which the 
brothers Arvales executed while singing that song to the 
Lares, preserved to us by a chance, or the Salii performed 
when, in the month of March, they passed through the 
streets of Eome, beating with their little swords upon 
their brazen shields. When the linen was thus washed, 
they spread it upon a wicker cage, where it was exposed 
to the fumes of sulphur. Then they stretched it, carded 
it with a long brush, and finally placed it under a press 
very like those used in the vintages. The more it was 
pressed, the whiter and brighter it came out.^ These 
various operations required large premises and numerous 
workmen. So in ancient towns there were fullers in 
great number. They passed for jovial, pleasure-loving, 
jocular folk, and Eoman popular comedy therefore loved 
much to busy itself with them, and to put them upon 
the stage. The sight of the "jolly fullers" (fidlones 
feriati) was privileged to amuse the people. The dis- 
covery of the new fullonica proves to us that the fullers 
of Pompeii resembled those of Eome. On the wall of 
the portico where they washed the wool the remains 
of a large painting were found, unfortunately much 
effaced, but which appears to have been drawn with 
much comic power. It is thought to represent the 



^ In the new fullonica, the room which served the workmen &a a 
■workshop is in wonderful preservation. One would thiuk work had 
only just been left off. The basins into which the washing was 
thrown are intact, and one would think that the iron taps, which 
have remained in their places, were about to pour the water of Sarnus 
into them. In a corner is seen an urn full of the chalky matter put 
into it the evening or the day before the eruption. 

Z 



354 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

feast of Minerva (quinquatrus), also that of the fullers. 
In it persons are seen yielding themselves up to joy 
with such violence that their games sometimes end in 
blows, and one of them, who has been beaten until 
blood flowed, comes to appeal to the law. But gay 
scenes prevail. There are dances and feasts where the 
guests are depicted in grotesque or obscene attitudes 
which Kabelais alone would dare to describe. This 
freedom of brush reminds us that we are in the land 
where the atellana was created. 

A thing to be noted is that the new fullonica, the 
house of Jucundus, and that which contained the 
Orpheus, are near each other. If we have been able to 
find so many curiosities nearly at the same time in 
a single corner of the town, must it not be concluded 
from this that we do well to continue the works, and 
that in prosecuting them still more happy discoveries 
may be expected ? 

II. 

Pompeii's chief lesson to us — country life in the 

ROMAN empire — THE DIFFICULTY OF ACQUAINTING 
ourselves with it — HOW POMPEII PUTS IT BEFORE 
OUR EYES — THE WHOLE EMPIRE REPEATS THE 
CUSTOMS OF ROME — ^THE ARISTOCRACY OF POMPEII — 
CHARACTERISTICS OF POMPEIAN HOUSES. 

These new discoveries, added to those made in the 
course of the previous century and a half, certainly 
make Pompeii one of the most interesting places in 
the world. By a rare privilege one instructs as much 



POMPEH. 355 

as one amuses oneself, and this journey, which 
delights the curious, is a source of still greater pleasure 
to people who wish to learn. Now that nearly half the 
town has been cleared, and it has become so easy to go 
over it, it is reasonable to ask ourselves what particular 
kind of profit may be drawn from visiting it, and, 
above all, what it teaches serious minds who make it 
their study. 

It appears to me that the great use of Pompeii for 
us is to teach us what provincial life was like in 
the Roman Empire. We know very well how time 
was passed at Eome, ancient authors being full of 
precise information on the subject. In Cicero's 
letters we can live the day of a statesman over again. 
Horace's satires paint for us to the very life the 
existence of a lounger whose chief occupations were to 
walk in the Forum or along the Sacred Way, to look at 
the ball-players in the Eield of Mars, to chat with the 
corn or vegetable merchants, and in the evening to 
listen to the quacks and the fortune-tellers. Juvenal, 
more indiscreet, allows us a peep into the interior of a 
dreadful tavern, the trysting-place of sailers, robbers, 
and fugitive slaves, at the end of which the officials of 
the funereal pomps sleep side by side with the begging 
priests of the Great Goddess. What escapes us is 
provincial life.^ We should probably know it better 
had the whole of the Latin theatre been preserved to 
us. Since the inhabitants of large towns rather like 

^ I here use the word provincial in the French sense for all that was 
not Roman, and, consequently, for Italy as well as for Gaul or Spain. 
The Romans made a distinction, and did not include Italy in what 
they called the irrovinces. 



356 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

to joke at the absurdity of small ones, it may be 
supposed that the authors of the mimes and of the 
atellancB ^ did not fail to turn them into ridicule. This 
is proved, too, by the titles of some of their pieces, 
and the short fragments we have preserved of them. 
Pomponius and Novius more than once amused them- 
selves in describing the misadventures of a candidate. 
Doubtless the elections of some small municipality were 
in question, for the Romans would not have suffered those 
of Rome to be laughed at. In a piece entitled the 
" Setinian," the poet Titinius put upon the stage one 
of those inveterate provincial dames who picture to 
themselves the entire world as turning round the axis 
of their village. They bring everything into connection 
with it, and believe that all is made for it. This one, 
while they show her Rome, only thinks of her dear 
Setia. " All," she replies to those who point out the 
Tiber to her, " what a service would be rendered to the 
territory of Setia if it could be made to flow there ! " 
Unfortunately, only very short fragments are extant. 
These pieces have been almost entirely lost, and the 
little that remains only excites our curiosity without 
satisfying it. 

If we turn to the writers who have come to us 
entire, we are scarcely less fortunate. As a rule, 
they only speak to us of the provinces, in order to tell 
us the deep repugnance they feel for them. Among 

^ From Atella, a town in Oscan Campania, where they were 
invented. An atdlana was originally a species of pantomimic farce, 
composed of tricks, grimaces, cuffs, and contortions. Its character 
was, however, greatly modified in the hands of Roman writers, whose 
atellance much resemble other contemporary comedies, — Translator. 



POMPEII. 357 

the lettered and the witty, they were no more fashion- 
able then than now ; all agreed in declaring that it was 
not possible to live out of Eome. Doubtless they were 
obliged to own it to be one of the most unhealthy 
abiding-places in the world. Fever had its altars 
there, even from the days of Numa, nor had it been 
decreased by the prayers made from such ancient times 
downward. Seneca owns that, in order to feel better, 
it was enough to quit this heavy, dusty, smoky 
atmosphere for a moment — yet it was never willingly 
left. Cicero, while quietly living there in it, did not 
scruple to say, even in his public speeches, that it was 
a very ugly, ill-built city ; that the houses there were too 
high and the streets too narrow.^ Yet he changed his 
mind directly he was out of it. " How beautiful it is ! " 
he exclaimed. It sufficed him to have been banished 
from it only a few months in order to find it admir- 
able.2 He left it, however, a few years later, in order 
to govern Cilicia, but this time he began regretting it 
as soon as it was out of sight. He was thinking of the 
means of returning thither, even before he had reached 
his province. While administering lands more vast than 
kingdoms, commanding armies, and receiving the com- 
pliments of the Senate for his victories, he could not 
console himself for being so far from the Capitol, and 
wrote to his friend Coelius disconsolate letters, advising 
him never to leave Eome, and always to live in its 
light : Urhem, urbem, mi Rufe, cole et in hac luce vive? 

^ Cicero, De legeagr., II., 35. 
^ Id. Post red., ad pop., 1. 
3 Id., Ad/am., II., 12. 



358 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Strictly speaking, it is conceivable that a statesman 
should not care to lose sight of the Forum, since it was 
so much to his interest not to absent himself from 
it. What is more surprising is that even poor people, 
for whom life in Eome was so dear and so difficult, 
persisted in remaining there too. Juvenal has most 
eloquently described to what wretchedness a poor 
client like himself was every day exposed. In order 
to gather courage to leave it, he vaunts to himself 
life at Sora, at Fabrateria, and at Frusino, charming 
towns, where there is no danger of being crushed in 
the morning by vehicles, and murdered in the evening 
by robbers ; where a house and a garden may be bought 
at the cost of the annual rent of a dark lodging 
in Eome. " Ah," he says to himself with an emotion 
at which we cannot help feeling touched, " it is there 
thou must live, enamoured of thy spade, and tending 
well thy little plot, which will bring thee vegetables 
enough to feast a hundred Pathagoricians. It is some- 
thing to be an owner, no matter where, no matter in 
what corner, even of a lizard hole." ^ Yet Juvenal did 
not succeed in convincing himself. He remained at 
Eome, where Martial shows him to us in the morning, 
wearily climbing the slopes of the great and little 
Cselian, on his way to pay his court to the rich who 
protected him. Statins, at least, showed more resolu- 
tion. He saw his reputation increase without his 
fortune augmenting. He was the first poet in Eome, 
yet one of the poorest, and, in order to live, he was 
forced to sing the amours of the rich and celebrate the 

i Juvenal, III. 228. 



POMPEII. 359 

virtues of Domitian in every key. What troubled him 
most was that he had a grown-up daughter to marry, a 
girl full of talent, who played upon the lyre and sang 
her father's verses ravishingly. Unhappily he had no 
dowry to give her, and " her beautiful youth was 
flowing away barren and lonely." ^ He resolved to 
return to Naples, his birth-place, where he hoped to 
find an easier existence and less exigent sons-in-law, 
but his wife refused to follow him. She was one 
of those obstinate Eoman ladies who thought it 
impossible to live elsewhere than on one of the seven 
hills. At thought of leaving Eome she emitted deep 
sighs and passed sleepless nights. In vain did Statins 
describe to her, in delightful verses, the marvels of 
Puteoli and Baise, that enchanting country, " where all 
unites to lend life charm, where the summers are cool 
and the winters mild, where the sea comes peacefully 
to die upon those shores which it caresses." She only 
thought of Suburra and the Esquilise. She was a 
woman capable of regretting the brooks of Eome in 
presence of the sea of Naples. 

This repugnance felt by Eoman men of letters for 
the provinces explains their silence concerning them. 
One does not care to speak of things which displease 
one, so they mention it as little as they can help, and 
what they say teaches us nothing precise or new. We 
should therefore now be very much embarrassed to 
divine how life used to pass in a little town of the 
Eoman Empire, if one had not fortunately been found. 
The discovery of Pompeii quite consoles us for the 

1 Statins, Silvce, III. 5, 60. 



360 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

silence of ancient writers. In order to know how 
people lived outside Eome, we need no longer with 
great trouble gather trivial and doubtful texts, for a 
short walk in Pompeii teaches us infinitely more. 

We may make up our minds, before entering, not 
to find ourselves so far away from home as we might 
have been tempted to expect. Everywhere where an 
important capital exists, it exercises a sovereign attrac- 
tion upon other towns ; its monuments are imitated, its 
fashions are copied, its language is reproduced, its life 
is lived. In the first century the whole universe had 
its eyes, turned towards Eome, whose usages had pene- 
trated everywhere. Only Greek civilisation still re- 
sisted. The East defended itself energetically against 
what it called an invasion of barbarians, but in the 
West the most vigorous and rebellious nationalities 
had let themselves be subdued. Spain, Gaul, and 
Britain were subjected to the customs as well as to 
the laws of the victors. As our friends beyond the 
Ehine say, the world had become Romanised. 

Eoman influence insinuated itself into the most 
distant countries from several sides at once. While 
the legions, crossing the Empire on their way to their 
frontier camps, caused it to penetrate among the ranks 
of the populace, by that natural affinity which every- 
where links the people with the soldiery, or even the 
traders who settled after the armies communicated, 
imposed their customs and their language upon the 
merchants, the agriculturists, and all those who had 
dealings with them, either for the sale of their own 
products or the purchase of those of Eome. As for the 
upper classes, they were in contact with the intendants 



POMPEII. 361 

(procurator es), the proprietors, and the proconsuls 
whom the Emperor and the Senate sent to govern the 
provinces. These were always people of the best 
society, knights or senators, accustomed to frequent 
the palace of Caesar, and who brought, as it were, an 
air of Eome into these distant countries. They were 
often accompanied by their wives, and always brought 
with them sons of great families, who came to instruct 
themselves in business by their example, and freedmen 
who served them as secretaries. These formed a kind 
of court, on which the good society of the towns where 
they resided modelled itself. By this daily contact 
with merchants, soldiers, and governors, the provinces 
had become Roman. Tacitus says that people there 
carefully read the journals of Eome in order to keep 
themselves informed of the least events that passed in 
the Senate or the Forum ; ^ they repeated the jokes 
against the masters of the moment, and were anxious 
to know the fine phrases and brilliant thoughts of 
renowned orators. The new works of fashionable 
authors were read everywhere. The librarians of 
Lyons advertised the latest pleadings of Pliny; those 
of Vienna sold Martial's epigrams, and this poet proudly 
tells us that his verses were sung as far as Roman sway 
extended. Even among the peoples little known and 
incompletely subdued, Rome penetrated as much by 
her arts and her literature as by her arms. " Gaul," 
says Juvenal, " has educated British lawyers, and it is 
said that Thule thinks of getting a professor of public 
eloquence." ^ Juvenal means to joke, but he does not 

1 Tacitus, Ann., XVI. 22. ^ Juvenal, XV. 110. 



362 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

exaggerate so much as he thinks. Britain was one of 
the Empire's last conquests, and apparently one of the 
least stable ; yet how great was its anguish when at 
the moment of the invasions it was forced to sever 
from Eome is well known. It is therefore probable 
that these distant provinces, these remote lands, held 
many a surprise in store for the Eoman visiting them. 
He must have been greatly astonished not to feel him- 
self so very much abroad. He even sometimes found 
there what is most difficult to transport from one 
country to another — that elegance of manners, that 
refinement of speech, that particular turn of raillery — 
in short, all those delicate qualities which the Eomans 
understood by the word ".urbanity," because they believed 
them bound up with life in the great city. When 
Martial came to Bilbilis, in the heart of Spain, he 
believed himself in a country of savages, and groaned 
at the thought of being there. But what was his 
surprise at finding a veritable Eoman lady in the 
place ! Even making allowance for politeness, his 
praises of Marcella show that urbanity had penetrated 
even as far as Bilbilis. " Speak but a single word," 
he tells her, " and the Palatine will think that thou 
belongest to it. None of the women born in Suburra, 
or who dwell on the slopes of the Capitol, can rival 
thee. Thou alone softenest my regrets at having left 
the mistress city. Alone thou sufficest to make it 
quite live again for me ! " ^ 

If the fine manners of the Capitol and the Palatine 
were found again in the heart of Spain, if rhetoric was 

1 Martial, XII. 21. 



POMPEII. 363 

studied at Thule, if the customs, the fashions, and the 
manner of speaking and living of the Eomans were 
faithfully reproduced at the ends of the world, it is clear 
that this imitation must have been much more visible 
in an Italian city, and, above all, at Pompeii — that is to 
say, at the gates of Baiae and Naples, whither the 
elegant youth of Eome went every year " to enjoy the 
warm baths and the enchanting spectacle of the sea." ' 
These distinguished visitors spread the habits of the 
great town around them, and the inhabitants of Pompeii 
could grow familiar with them while scarcely leaving 
home. This influence must have made itself felt by 
everybody, but it was especially the rich, those forming 
the country aristocracy, who had before their eyes models 
whom they gladly sought to reproduce. 

There was in every age an important aristocracy at 
Pompeii, but that which governed the little town at the 
moment of its destruction does not appear to have been 
very ancient. It has been remarked that inscriptions 
anterior to the Empire contain names of magistrates 
which do not re-appear later on. The families of these 
personages seem subsequently to have vanished or to 
have become obscure. With the first Cgesars, the 
Holconii, the Pansse, etc., appear in their stead. Are 
we to believe that the great events which then took 
place were not without bearing on their sudden fortune ? 
Their generosity proves to us that they were very rich, 
and wealth only comes thus suddenly to skilful work- 
men, bold merchants, and fortunate speculators. Let 

^ Propter aquas ealidas deliciasque maris. This is a line from an 
epitaph found at Ostia. 



364 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

US not forget that Pompeii, which appears only to have 
been a pleasure resort, was also a town of commerce. 
Strabo affirms that it served as a port of Acerra, Noise, 
and of Nocera, so it was a kind of industrial centre for 
all this part of Campania. It is very possible that the 
impulse given to business by the establishment of the 
Empire, the peace and safety restored to the world after 
so many troubles, together with the increase of public 
well-being and opulence, which were their natural result, 
suddenly brought to the first rank families whose posi- 
tion had hitherto been more modest, and founded those 
great houses which were to predominate in the city for 
the ensuing century. That this aristocracy should have 
taken pleasure in imitating the manners of the Eoman 
nobility whom it occasionally saw upon its shores is not 
to be wondered at, its position in the little town being 
nearly that of great personages at Eome. Like them, it 
filled all public offices, and, like them, too, it won and 
paid for the favours of the people by incredible liberali- 
ties. The two brothers Holconius rebuilt the whole of 
a theatre at their own expense. The inscriptions on 
monuments constructed by them, or which were raised 
in their honour, inform us concerning their public life ; 
what their private existence was is less easy to ascertain. 
Until we have the good fortune to lay our hands on 
their account-books, as happened in the case of the 
banker Jucundus, some idea of their mode of life may 
best be gathered from the richness and beauty of their 
dwellings. 

If we would appreciate the beautiful houses of Pompeii 
as they deserve, and properly understand the charms 
they must have had for their owners, we must lay aside 



POMPEII. 365 

a few prejudices. The dwellers in this charming town 
appear above all things to have anxiously sought their 
well-being, but they did not place it where we do. 
Each century possesses its opinions and its preferences 
in this respect, and the way to be happy has its fashions 
like everything else. Were we to allow ourselves to be 
dominated by that tyranny of habit which forbids us to 
believe it possible to live otherwise than we do, the 
houses of Pompeii would perhaps appear small and in- 
convenient to us, but if we for a moment forget our ideas 
and our habits, and make ourselves Eomans in thought, 
we shall find that those who lived in them made them 
very well for themselves, and that they were perfectly 
adapted to all their tastes and all their wants. In our 
great towns it is now difficult, even for the rich, to 
possess a house for themselves alone. They mostly 
lodge in houses which they share with many others. 
Their apartments are composed of a series of large 
airy rooms, with broad windows that take in air and 
light from the streets and squares. There is nothing 
similar at Pompeii. The number of houses there 
occupied by single families is very considerable. The 
chief rooms are all on the ground floor.^ The richest 
have built themselves houses situated between four 



^ The upper stories must have heen reserved for less important 
rooms. They are reached by steep and narrow stairs. There is no- 
thing like the main staircase of modern houses, which gives admittance 
to all the stories, and is common to every apartment. In Nissen 
{Pompeian. Stud., p. 602) will be found some very astute observations 
on the part played in our dwellings by the staircase, and the character 
it has given them. Of all the parts of a modern house, it is that 
which a Pompeian would have least understood. 



366 ARCILEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

streets, and occupying what was called an entire "island." 
If chary of their fortune, they parcel out a portion of 
this great space for shops, to be let out at high rents. 
These shops sometimes take up all the outside frontage 
of a dwelling. While we carefully reserve the facade 
for the finest apartments, at Pompeii it is given up to 
trade, or shut in by thick walls without openings. The 
entire house, instead of looking on the street, is faced 
towards the interior. It only communicates with the 
outside by the entrance door, rigorously shut and guarded. 
There are but few windows, and these only in the upper 
stories. They like to live at home, far from the in- 
different and from strangers. Now, what we term 
domestic life belongs in great measure to the public. 
The world has easy access to us, and when it does not 
come, we desire at least to see it through our widely- 
opened windows. Among the ancients, private life was 
more retired, more truly secluded, than with us. The 
master of the house did not care to look into the 
streets, and, above all, he did not want the street to look 
into him. He has even divisions and distinctions in 
his house itself. The part where he receives strangers 
is not that whither he retires with his family, nor is it 
easy to penetrate this sanctuary, divided from the rest 
by corridors, shut off by doors and hangings, and 
guarded by door-keepers. The master receives when he 
will, he shuts himself up when he chooses, and if in the 
vestibule some client more than usually troublesome or 
persistent awaits his coming forth, he has a back door 
(posticum) on a narrow street that allows him to escape. 
To those who find the rooms of the Pompeian houses 
somewhat too small for their taste, it has already been 



POMPEII. 367 

replied that the inhabitants passed a great portion of 
their day from home, under the portico of the Forum or 
of the theatres. It may be added that if the chambers 
are not large, they are numerous. The Eoman does 
with his rooms as with his slaves ; he has different 
rooms for all the incidents of the day, as he possesses 
servants for all the various necessities of life. With 
him, each room is made exactly for the use it is to be 
put to. He is not, like us, satisfied with a single dining- 
room ; he has some of different sizes, changing them 
according to the season and the number of friends he 
chooses to regale. The room where he takes his siesta 
in the day-time, and that where he retires at night 
to sleep, are very small, and only receive light and air 
by means of the door. This is not an inconvenience 
in the south, where shade brings coolness. Besides, he 
only stays there just as long as he sleeps. For the 
remainder of the time he has a court shut in, or nearly 
»so, called the atrium, together with an open court or 
peristyle. Here it is that he likes to remain best when 
at home. He is there not only with his wife and 
children, but in view of his servants, and sometimes in 
their society. In spite of his taste for retirement and 
isolation, of which I have spoken, he does not shun 
their company. This is because the family of antiquity 
is more extended than ours, including in a lower degree 
the slave and the freedman, so that the master, in 
living with them, still considers himself among his own. 
These open and closed courts where the family pass 
their lives are found in all Pompeian houses without 
exception. They are indispensable for the purpose of 
affording light to all the rest of the premises. So even 



368 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

among the less rich, pleasure is taken in ornament- 
ing them tastefully, and sometimes profusely. If the 
ground allows of it, a few shrubs are planted there, or 
some flowers are grown. Moralists ^ and men of the 
world laugh at these miniature gardens between four 
walls. Those who own magnificent villas, with large 
trees and arbours hung upon elegant columns, discourse 
of them very much at their ease. Each does as he is 
able, and I own that I could not be severe on those poor 
people who were determined to put a little greenery 
before their eyes. I am more inclined to find fault 
with them on account of their love for those brooklets 
which they pompously dubbed euripus, or for those 
grottoes of rock or shell work which are only so many 
pretentious toys. Their excuse is that this odd taste 
has been shared by the citizen classes of all countries 
and of all times. Those of Pompeii, at least, excel 
all others in their determination not to look on 
any displeasing object. They possess fine mosaics, 
brilliant stuccoes, and incrustations of marble on which 
their eyes may repose with pleasure. The fatiguing 
glare of the white stones has everywhere been softened 
by pleasing tints. The walls are painted grey or black, 
the columns toned with yellow or red. Along the 
cornices run graceful arabesques, composed of inter- 
twining flowers, mingled at times with birds that never 
existed or landscapes which have nowhere been seen. 
These aimless fancies please the eye and do not exercise 
the mind. Now and then, upon some larger panel, a 

1 See what Fabianus says on this head (Seneca rhetor., CoTitrov,, II. 
pref. ). 



POMPEII. 369 

mythological scene, painted unpretentiously and in 
broad strokes, recalls to the master some chef d'oe.iLvre of 
antique art, and enables him to enjoy it from memory. 
Occasionally this humble citizen is so fortunate as to 
possess a bronze imitation of one of the finest works of 
Greek sculpture — a dancing satyr, a fighting athletic, 
a god, a goddess, a cithern player, etc."" He knows its 
worth, he understands its beauty, and has placed it on 
a pedestal in his atrium or his peristyle, to greet it with a 
look each time he passes out or enters in. Those rich 
Pompeians were happy folk. They knew how to 
beautify their lives with all the charms of well-being, 
to quicken it by the enjoyment of the arts, and I 
believe that many important personages of our largest 
towns would be tempted to envy the fate of the obscure 
citizens of this little municipality. 



^ It is from Pompeii and Herculaneum — that is to say, from two towns 
of the second order — that the fine bronzes of the Naples Museum come, 
which are the admiration of strangers. Among the citizens of our 
provincial towns nothing of the kind would be found. It must be 
added that the most beautiful things in Pompeii did not remain there. 
"We know that after the catastrophe the inhabitants came and 
excavated for the purpose of carrying away their most precious things. 
Now, therefore, we have only what they could not find, or neglected to 
take. 



2 A 



370 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

III. 

THE PAINTINGS OF POMPEII ACCORDING TO DOCTOR HELBIG'S 
WORKS — THE LARGE NUMBER OF MYTHOLOGICAL 
PICTURES — CHARACTER OF THESE PICTURES — THE 
PAINTINGS OF POMPEII NOT ORIGINAL — WHY CRITICS 
OF THE FIRST CENTURY TREAT THE PAINTINGS OF 
THEIR TIME SO SEVERELY — FROM WHAT SCHOOLS DID 
POMPEIAN ARTISTS BORROW THE SUBJECTS OF THEIR 
PICTURES — ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC PAINTING 
— ROOM PICTURES — GENERAL CHARACTER OF HELLEN- 
ISTIC PAINTING — HOW FAR DID POMPEIAN ARTISTS 
FAITHFULLY REPRODUCE THEIR MODELS — WHAT IS THE 
PARTICULAR MERIT OF THE PAINTINGS AT POMPEII ? 

"What seems to us especially worthy of envy in these 
charming houses are the paintings which cover nearly 
all their walls. They are the surprise and admiration 
of all who visit Pompeii. But it is not enough to look 
at them in passing, as is usually done. If we would 
carry away anything more than a fugitive impression 
of them, we must inquire of those who have made them 
their special occupation, and whom anterior studies pre- 
pared to understand them. By taking an enlightened 
connoisseur for our guide, we shall learn to appreciate 
them better, we shall have a more complete comprehen- 
sion of them, and we shall succeed in acquiring from 
them a few correct ideas concerning the character and 
history of ancient art. 

Professor W. Helbig is just one of those critics whose 
competence no one disputes, and who may be safely 
trusted. No one has studied the paintings of Hercu- 



POMPEII. 371 

laneum and Pompeii more thoroughly than he, and he 
has written two learned works about them, one of which 
forms the sequel to the other. The first gives us a 
minutely detailed catalogue of these paintings, with 
descriptions as precise as possible, and classifies them 
according to their subjects whenever these have 
fortunately been discovered.^ In the other, the author 
handles all the questions raised by these paintings, 
seeking, above all, to ascertain how far the subjects 
are original, and whether the school to which they 
belong may be known.^ 

Of these two books the second is naturally the most 
pleasant reading, but the first, although drier in appear- 
ance, is perhaps of still greater utility. Even apart 
from the other work, which serves it as a commentary, 
this catalogue is full of the most curious instruction. I 
think that an age may be judged, not only by the books 
which it delights to read, but also by the pictures it 
most loves to look at. This is an indication as to its 
character and its tastes that can hardly deceive. Let 
^^s apply this rule to Professor Helbig's catalogue. Of 
1968 paintings classified and described by him, there 
are rather more than 1400 — nearly three-quarters — in 
some way or another connected with mythology, — that 
is to say, they represent the adventures of the gods or 
the legends of the heroic age. This figure shows the 
place held by the religious memories of the past in the 
minds of all during the first century. Even the in- 
credulous and the indifferent felt their influence. When 

^ W andgevidldc der vom Vesuv verschiitteten Stadte Campanicns, 
Leipzig. 

^ Untersuclmngen ilber die campanische Wandmalerei, Leipzig. 



372 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

conscience escaped them, they still held sway over the 
imagination. This is a reflection which has often forced 
itself on students of the art or the literature of this 
period, but nowhere does it strike one more forcibly 
than at Pompeii. It is necessary to insist on this, if 
we reflect that, at the very moment when artists were 
profusely decorating Campanian towns with the images 
of gods and heroes, Christianity was beginning to spread 
in the Empire. St Paul had just passed quite close to 
these shores, on his way from Puteoli to Eome, and 
there are reasons to believe that the coquettish and 
voluptuous town about to be engulfed by Vesuvius had 
been visited by some Christians.^ They preached their 
doctrine and celebrated their mysteries in these houses 
whose walls at every moment reminded them of a 
hostile worship. The multitude of these paintings gives 
us an idea of the obstacles which Christianity had to 
overcome. The religion against which it struggled had 
taken possession of men's entire existence. It was very 
difficult for a pagan to forget his gods ; he came upon 
them everywhere, not only in the temples and public 
places of resort, which were fiUed with their images, but 
in his private dwelling, on the walls of those halls and 
chambers where he lived with his family, so that they 
seemed bound up with all the acts of his private life, 
and he who abandoned them appeared at the same time 
to break with all the memories and affections of the 
past. It was on these pictures that the child's first 
glances rested ; he admired ere he understood them ; 

A word, thought to be Christianus, was found written with char- 
coal on a white wall {Corp. insc. laL, IV. 679). 



POMPEII. 373 

they entered his memoiy and became mingled with 
those youthful impressions which are never forgotten. 
The Fathers of the Church are therefore right in 
remarking that what then gave so many partisans to 
mythology was that it took possession of everybody in 
their cradles, and almost before their birth. So Turtul- 
lian said with as much vigour as truth : Omnes idolola- 
tria dbstetrice nascimur. 

Here we are then well informed, by the sight 
presented by the paintings of Pompeii, of the importance 
which mythology still retained, if not in the beliefs, at 
least in the habits of life. But what was the character 
of this mythology ? How were these gods and heroes 
presented to their adorers, and in what adventures ? 
Here again Professor Helbig's catalogue is very instruc- 
tive. He shows us that what the painters prefer above 
all else are love stories. Jupiter appears engaged 
in seducing Danse, lo, or Leda, and in carrying off 
Europa. The pursuit of Daphne by Apollo is the 
subject of twelve pictures, while Venus is represented 
fifteen times in the arms of Mars, and sixteen times 
with handsome Adonis. It is the same with the other 
divinities, and in all these pictures little else is thought 
of but their gallantries. This is what an elegant and 
trivial world had made out of an ancient and grave 
mythology. It is true that it had not offered much 
resistance. One of the greatest strengths of those 
ancient religions which possessed no sacred books, and 
were not fixed and held together by doctrines, was 
their ability to accommodate themselves easily to the 
opinions and tastes of each successive age. That of 
Greece sufficed for everything during centuries, and 



374 ARCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

this is why it lived so long. From. Homer down to the 
ISTeo-Platonians, it was able to take all forms — serious 
at times, at others sportive, always poetic — it served the 
poets for the purpose of expressing their most varied 
ideas and their most contrary sentiments, and allowed 
philosophers to clothe their most profound doctrines in 
brilliant colours. At the moment with which we are 
busied, it bent, with its usual suppleness and fertility of 
resource, to the caprices of a society fond of repose and 
pleasure, rich, happy, and assured of the morrow by a 
dreaded power, freed from serious political cares, and 
only left with that of passing life gaily, and which 
loved to represent itself under the image of its gods, 
and idealise their pleasures by attributing them to 
the inhabitants of Olympus. Thus we find another 
attraction in the paintings of Pompeii, when we reflect 
that they are the image of an epoch, and aid us to 
understand it. But since I just now spoke of Chris- 
tianity, and showed that the strong affection remaining 
for mythology must be an obstacle to its progress, it 
should be added that it might render this obstacle less 
serious by showing what mythology had become, and 
that it was now nothing more than a school of im- 
morality. It may well be thought that this was not 
neglected. Learned critics of our days have accused 
the Fathers of the Church of ignorance or calumny 
when they laugh at the gods and affirm that all the 
adventures attributed to them are only the glorification 
of the most shameful passions of men. They reply that 
these fables have a deeper sense, that they cloak great 
truths, and that they are, in reality, only an allegorical 
explanation of the most important phenomena of nature. 



POMPEII. 375 

They are doubtless right, provided we only bear the 
mythology of primitive ages in mind ; but it is certain 
that the mythology of the first century, at least in the 
minds of people of the world, had no longer this 
character. People who had the loves of Jupiter for 
Danse or Ganymede painted in their houses were not 
sages desirous of expressing some cosmogonic thought ^ 
they were voluptuaries who wished to incite to pleasure 
or rejoice their eyes with an agreeable image. There 
is no longer the slightest intention of myth or allegory 
in them; only human life is represented, and the 
painter's thought does not go beyond the reproduction 
of love-scenes for the greater delight of the amorous. 
So when the Christian doctors so violently attacked the 
immorality of mythology, it was not possible to refute 
them, and they who listened to their invectives only 
had to raise their eyes to the walls of their houses in 
order to convince themselves that at the bottom they 
were not wrong. 

The, other paintings are either reproductions of 
animals and still life, landscapes, or character 
paintings.^ These latter have a great interest for us,, 
and render us many services. It is they which are 
looked at with the greatest curiosity in going over 



^ Among the character paintings, Professor Helbig distinguishes 
two different classes. There are first those in which a certain mixture of 
the real and the ideal is remarked, which, for example, represent Eros 
hunting, Cupids angling or grape-gathering, women engaged in their 
toilet with little Loves who help them, etc., and those quite realistic, 
which reproduce scenes of ordinary Pompeian life, without seeking 
to embellish them. It is these latter, especially, that will be meant 
when I talk of character pictures. 



376 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Pompeii. Eepresenting real scenes and living person- 
ages, they seem to animate the desert town and give it 
back the inhabitants it has lost. But none of these 
various classes into which the Pompeian paintings may 
be divided can be compared, either as regards the 
talent of the painters or the number of the pictures, with 
that which contains only mythological subjects. 

The first and most important question one asks 
oneself concerning the pictures at Pompeii is that of 
their origin. "Whence came the painters who did them ? 
Were they original artists who invented the subjects of 
their works ? And if they were only imitators, to 
what school did their originals belong, and in what 
century did they live ? As ancient writers give us no 
information on this point, we are forced to interrogate 
the paintings themselves, and draw all our knowledge 
from them. 

With regard to the character pictures of which I 
have just spoken, the question is easy to solve. They 
represent local scenes and personages of the country, 
and were therefore created in the land itself, and taken 
from reality. If the master of the house which the 
artist had to decorate was one of those mad lovers of 
the amphitheatre or the circus, who wished to have 
their presentments always before his eyes, or if he 
merely liked everyday scenes, the artist pleased him by 
copying them exactly. He went to see the gladiators 
go through their exercises in the great barracks that 
have been found near the theatre, and reproduced them 
as he had seen them, and without more ceremony 
he transferred to his pictures the personages who fre- 
quented the Porum or the streets of the little town. 



POMPEII. 377 

We may be assured that the fullers, the tavern- 
keepers, the bakers, and the fishmongers, seen on 
the walls of Pompeian houses, lived in the shops where 
their tools are still found. These half-naked women, 
with their hair raised above their brows in so strange a 
manner, are the same who sold their favours at a very 
low price in those narrow cells, which not everybody 
is allowed to visit, and which contain such gross 
drawings and brutal inscriptions. The painter had 
himself watched these peasants and workmen, in their 
monk-like hooded tunics, seated at a table before 
a glass of wine, whom he has rendered in a manner so 
true to life ; he had seen with his own eyes this soldier, 
with his tawny complexion, full boots, and ample 
garment, saying gaily to mine host, who offers him 
a glass : " Come, a little fresh water " {Da fridam 
pusillum). What proves that the artist reproduced 
people of the country is, that they still strike by their 
resemblance to the people we have met on the piazza 
and in the shops of Naples. So the origin of these pictures 
is easily found. The artists who composed them faith- 
fully imitated what they had before their eyes — they 
were done at Pompeii itself, and for Pompeii. But it 
must be remarked that they were very few (a score, at 
most) and generally of very slight dimensions. For 
the others, it is a different question. It does not seem 
to me possible to suppose the 1480 mythological 
pictures, which are often large works, and reveal a 
high talent for composition, are the work of original 
artists who painted them expressly to adorn the 
houses where they are now seen. Herculaneum and 
Pompeii were small towns, and scarcely deserved that 



378 ARCH^,OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

a painter should go to so much inventive trouble for 
them. Besides, what proves that these pictures were 
not destined solely for them, is that they have been found 
in other places. Elsewhere, and especially at Eome, 
the remains of dwellings have been discovered, decorated 
exactly like those of the towns of the Campania.^ The 
walls of these houses are painted with character pictures 
resembling those we admire in the museum at Naples, 
and with the same mythological subjects treated in the 
same manner : for example, lo, guarded by Argus and 
delivered by Mercury, seen in the house of Livia, in 
the palace of the Csesars, exactly resembles six or 
seven compositions representing the same adventure 
at Pompeii. Does this not prove that these artists had 
prepared a certain number of pictures beforehand, had 
practised painting them, and reproduced them on every 
occasion when their services were required ? But they 
were not really the creators of these pictures at Eome 



■^ While digging along the Tiber shore, in order to widen the bed 
of the river, they found, opposite the Farnese Gardens, the remains 
of a charming Roman dwelling. It was composed of long corridors, 
and a few rooms, of which one especially had been very remarkably 
decorated. When freed from the wet mud that had filled it for 
perhaps eighteen centuries past, the colours had an extraordinary 
brilliancy. As usual, architectural motives were observed, painted 
with great elegance, figures very boldly drawn, columns bound 
together with garlands and arabesques, and, in the midst, medallions 
containing scenes from common life — repasts, concerts, and sacrifices. 
This system of decoration is, on the whole, like that of the Pompeian 
houses, only more careful, and treated by artists of greater skill. 
These fine paintings, threatened with being again covered by the 
Tiber, were carefully removed and placed in the museum of the 
Lungara. 



POMPEII. 379 

any more than at Pompeii. They neither imagined the 
subjects nor their arrangement. What allows us to 
affirm this is, that in scenes of any importance the 
conception is always superior to the execution. It 
exhibits a power of invention, a skill in composition — 
a talent, in fine, which seems above that of the obscure 
artist who did the fresco. It is, I think, natural to 
conclude from this that the painting was not executed 
by the same person who imagined the subject, and that 
the Pompeian artists, instead of taking the trouble to 
invent, were for the most part content to reproduce 
known paintings, adapting them to the places for 
which they were intended. The rapidity and inex- 
haustible fertility of their work are thus explained. 
Having in their memories, and, so to speak, at the 
end of their brushes, a crowd of brilliant subjects 
taken from illustrious masters, they could finish off 
the decoration of a house expeditiously and cheaply. 
They did not, therefore, paint from inspiration, but 
from memory ; they were not inventors, but copyists. 

This is probably why connoisseurs and critics of the 
first century treat the painting of their time so severely. 
We have on this subject the opinion of a clever man, an 
enlightened lover of letters and of arts, a person strange 
and full of contrasts, very light in his conduct and very 
serious in his judgments, who lived like the people of 
his period, and affected to think like those of former 
times. Petronius, in his satirical romance, imagines 
his heroes genuine adventurers, walking one day beneath 
a portico ornamented as usual with rare paintings. 
They look at them with great pleasure, desire to know 
their date, seek to understand their subject, and enter 



380 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

into a discussion. The past, as general!}^ happens, 
swiftly brings them back to the present, and they soon 
begin to converse about contemporary art. They speak 
of it very severely, and the admiration they feel for 
the ancient artists renders them very hard towards those 
of their own age. They find that the arts are in full 
decadence, and that it is the love of money which has 
ruined them. In this connection follow the laments 
which have since then so often been repeated. " The 
past was the golden age, the arts shone in them with 
all their glory, because bare merit alone was loved. It 
is not surprising that they should have fallen off, when 
gods and men are seen by far to prefer an ingot of gold 
to all the statues and all the pictures which those poor 
Greeks, those madmen, Phidias and Apelles, took the 
trouble to make." ^ The conclusion is, that painting is 
dead, and that not even a trace of it remains. This 
opinion is almost that of Pliny the Elder, a less pre- 
judiced and, in general, a more equitable judge. He 
somewhere asserts " that painting is about to perish," and 
in another place, " that it has already ceased to exist," ^ 
These are very rigorous verdicts, and people who have 
just visited Pompeii have some difficulty in subscribing 
to them. When they recall those scenes so skilfully 
composed, those figures so elegant and so graceful, 
and when they consider that these pictures were exe- 
cuted in so short a time by unknown artists for country 
towns, they find it impossible to believe that art was in 
such a desperate state as Pliny and Petronius affirm. 
But all is accounted for if we remember that those 

I Petronius, Sat., 2 and 88. ^ Pliny, XXXV. 29 and 50. 



POMPEII. 381 

charming copies were, after all, but copies. They have 
not the merit of invention, and it is in invention that 
Pliny and Petronius, who pride themselves on being 
classic, made the greatness of painting chiefly consist. 
Since it no longer itself creates, and only lives by 
imitation, they consider it dead. Hence their severity. 

We are no longer in the same position as they were. 
Since the originals have now ceased to exist, they cannot 
by comparison depreciate the merit of the imitations 
that were made of them. We no longer descend from 
the originals to the copies, which is always very danger- 
ous for them ; it is, on the contrary, the copies which 
enable us to soar to the lost originals, and picture to 
ourselves what they must have been. This service 
which they render us disposes us favourably towards 
them at starting. Par from complaining that the 
Pompeian painters were not inventive geniuses, we are 
almost tempted to be grateful to them for not having 
drawn upon themselves for anything. By being content 
to reproduce the creations of others, they carry us back 
towards those great epochs of ancient art which with- 
out them would be unknown to us. 

But what, exactly, was the age in which the Pompeian 
artists sought these originals, and is it possible to ascer- 
tain with precision to what epoch of history and to 
what period of art the masters belonged from whom 
they drew their inspiration ? 

First of all, did they confine themselves to copying 
the pictures of a single school, and were they not of 
those eclectics who seek their advantage everywhere, 
reproducing the works of all times ? They must doubt- 
lessly have sometimes done so. Works are found 



382 ARCH^OLOGICAL KAMBLES. 

among them differing from the rest, and which do not 
seem to belong to their usual manner. Such for 
example is the famous picture of the "Sacrifice of 
Iphigenia," one of the finest discovered at Pompeii, 
and which by a rare good fortune also happens to be 
one of the best preserved. In the centre, Iphigenia, 
in tears and with hands raised heavenwards, is brought 
to the altar by Ulysses and Diomedes. At one 
extremity Agamemnon covers his face in order not to see 
his daughter's death, and at the other Calchas, grasping 
the knife, seems sadly to prepare himself for his cruel 
part of sacrificer. Above, Diana appears in a light 
cloud, with the hind that is to be offered in place of 
the young girl. It appears to Professor Helbig, an 
expert judge in such a matter, that the regular arrange- 
ment of the picture, the symmetrical correspondence 
of the personages, the colouring of the background, and 
the folds of the garments, recall a somewhat ancient 
epoch of art. He draws attention to the circumstance 
that the figures are so arranged that the picture might 
be made into a bas-relief with scarcely any trouble. 
What is more characteristic yet is that Diomedes and 
Ulysses are represented smaller than Agamemnon and 
Calchas, in accordance with that somewhat naive 
antique rule that the importance of the personages 
must be recognised by their height. While making 
all these curious observations. Professor Helbig does 
not go so far as to pretend that this fine picture belongs 
to a very remote age. In all times there are artists 
who love to turn back and resume old methods and 
processes. Pliny, speaking of two famous painters who 
worked at the temple of Honour and of Virtue, which 



POMPEII. 383 

Vespasian was having rebuilt, says of one of them that 
he more resembled the ancients : Prisciis antiquis 
similior} The author of the " Sacrifice of Iphigenia " 
was doubtless an artist of this kind. Being a lover of 
archaism, he conceived and executed his picture in the 
antique manner, and the Pompeian artists, in accord- 
ance with their custom, faithfully reproduced it. 

But these archaic fancies are rare at Pompeii. On 
the contrary, nearly all the pictures are very like each 
other, the subjects are usually conceived and carried 
out in the same way, and they appear to belong to the 
same school. Professor Helbig has no trouble in 
settling that it was the one which flourished at the 
court of the successors of Alexander. It was there- 
fore Alexandrian or Hellenistic ^ art which the Pompeian 
artists imitated, and of which their paintings may 
afford us some image. 

Although G-reece was then in decadence, taste for 
the arts had not ceased to be as lively there as formerly. 
Alexander had honoured himself with the friendship of 
Lysippus and of Apelles ; his successors, continuing 
the tradition, loved to gather artists around them, and 
sometimes became artists themselves. Attains III., the 
last king of Pergamus, modelled in wax and chiselled 
bronze. Antiochus Epiphanes rested from the fatigues 
of royalty in a sculptor's studio. They grudged no- 

1 Pliny, XXXV. 120. 

2 German critics call Hellenic the literature wliicli flourished prior 
to Alexander, and Hellenistic that which came afterwards. This 
designation is more correct than that of Alexandrian literature, for, 
under the successors of Alexander, there were very brilliant literary 
schools at Pergamus and Antioch, as well as at Alexandria. 



384 AECH^.OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

thing in order to obtain statues or pictures that had 
charmed them. They paid artists insane sums. One 
of these princes proposed to the Cnidians, who were 
head over ears in debt, to undertake all their liabilities 
on condition of their ceding him the " Venus Aphrodite " 
of Praxiteles. Another, in the sale which Mummius 
made of the booty of Corinth, ran up the " Bacchus " of 
Aristides to the price of 100 talents (500,000 francs). 
Mummius, who could scarcely believe his ears, judged 
that a picture which people were willing to pay so 
dearly for must be a marvel, and kept it for Eome. 
The mad passions of these crowned amateurs knew 
neither bounds nor obstacles. Nothing was sacred in 
their eyes when it was a question of getting hold of a 
fine work. It is they who taught the Eoman pro- 
consuls the way to form a rich gallery for themselves 
at the expense of the most respected divinities. They 
were, in reality, the teachers of Verres. In their con- 
stant wars with each other, the treasures of the gods 
were no safer than those of kings. When Prusias I. 
invaded the territory of Pergamus, he did not in 
the least scruple to take from a venerated sanctuary 
the statue of Vulcan, a renowned work of Phyromacus. 
Ptolemy Evergetes, in his Asiatic expedition, under 
pretence of retaking the sacred images which Cambyses 
had carried off from Egypt, broke into the temples and 
seized all the works of art contained in them. Thus 
it came about that so many masterpieces were heaped 
together in the palaces of Pergamus, Antioch, and 
Alexandria. They were, however, not fated to remain 
there, for the Koman generals, taught by the example 
of the Greek kings, in their turn laid hands upon this 



POMPEII. 385 

rich booty, and carried it off to Eome, to adorn their 
triumphs. 

From princes and kings, this taste soon descended 
to private individuals. The succession of Alexander, 
as we know, was the cause of trouble and wars without 
end. Never was power disputed with greater ardour, 
never more easily won and sooner lost than then. In 
such unquiet times great fortunes are quickly made 
and unmade. So these upstarts who remembered 
yesterday and feared to-morrow made haste to enjoy 
their ephemeral wealth. Menander's " Comic Muse " has 
popularised the type of those soldiers of fortune who 
came to squander in a few days with Athenian courtesans 
the money which they had gained in the courts of the 
sovereigns of the West. They love to show them, 
welcomed by their mistresses and flattered by their 
parasites as long as their golden Darics or Philips last, 
and then discarded and mocked, when they have 
nothing more in their purses. Among these parvenus 
were some who turned their fortunes to a better use. 
They imitated their masters by buying pictures and 
statues to adorn their houses. 

It was a novelty : Professor Helbig thinks that, in the 
great age of art, artists scarcely worked for private 
individuals. Doubtless we are told that Agatharchus 
decorated the house of Alcibiades ; but Alcibiades could 
not pass for an ordinary citizen. Painters usually kept 
their talents for the public. They covered the spacious 
walls of the porticoes with scenes taken from the ancient 
legends and the poems of Homer, or they composed 
pictures to be placed in the temples. Perhaps they may 
have thought that to make art subserve the pleasure of a 

2b 



386 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

single man would have been to degrade it. Pliny, at 
least, implies this, and he adds in magnificent terms 
that their pictures, instead of being shut up in a house, 
where at most a few privileged persons could enter, 
had the whole town for their dwelling ; that everybody 
could contemplate them, and that a painter then be- 
longed to all the universe : Pidor res communis terrarum 
erat} But it appears that when, under Alexander, the 
Greek cities lost their freedom, their inhabitants became 
in some degree estranged from them. They felt less 
bound towards the Eepublic, since it no longer gave the 
citizens the same right, and they intervened less directly 
in its affairs. They were less proud of it, no longer 
cared so much to beautify it ; in short, they thought less of 
it and more of themselves. They kept the money which 
was no longer destined for public monuments to decorate 
their own houses, which they made the centre of their 
existence. Painters naturally flattered a new taste 
certain to redound to their profit. " Two chief points," 
says Letronne,^ "may be distinguished in the history of 
Greek art ; that during which it was exclusively con- 
secrated to keeping alive religious faith by images of 
the gods and paintings of their benefits, to awakening 
the patriotism of citizens by the ever-living spectacle of 
the great deeds of their ancestors, where, consequently, 
each work of the artist had its destination and its place 
marked in advance ; and that in which art, so to speak, 
could no longer be had except by ordering, in which its 
productions became objects of luxury, were put in the 
rank of rarities, assimilated to industrial products, 

^ Pliny, XXXV. 118. ^In his Lettres d'un antiquaire a un artiste. 



POMPEII. 387 

sought after less for their beauty than their price, and 
heaped together in the palaces of kings and of the 
wealthy for the vain pleasure of the eyes." Thence- 
forth the artist lost his taste for those large paintings 
which were made for a given monument, which had to 
correspond to the destination and architecture of the 
edifice, and which reproduced the character of the place 
they filled, and are only understood there. He worked 
in his studio according to his caprice upon subjects of 
his choice, without troubling himself as to what would 
become of his pictures, or, rather, certain in advance 
that a rich amateur would be found, ready to pay for 
them dearly and make them the ornament of his 
dwelling. Thus it was that, instead of large frescoes 
and vast canvases destined for public monuments, they 
began to paint what Professor Helbig rightly calls " room 
pictures " (Gahinetshilder) in the same way that we say 
" chamber music," as opposed to that of the theatre or 
the church. They were to be hung along the walls in 
private houses, and became a kind of want, or, as it 
were, an indispensable luxury for those who were 
called the happy ones of the world.^ 

Professor Helbig has very well shown, in what is 
perhaps the best part of his book, that the Pompeian 
system of decoration proceeds from this custom. What- 
ever may have been pretended, it has nothing in 
common with the great monumental painting applied 
to the walls of temples or porticoes in the first period 
of Greek art. In order to convince oneself of this, it 



^ See a passage of Artistotle, quoted by Cicero {De nat. Deorum, 
II. 37). 



388 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

is enough to study the manner in which the mytho- 
logical or other scenes which ornament the Campanian 
houses are arranged upon the walls. They generally 
cover only a part of them, are placed amidst architec- 
tural decoration destined to set them off, distributed 
in regular compartments, and very often surrounded by 
a frame which seems to lean upon the wainscoat or rest 
upon consoles. The artist has evidently tried to 
produce a kind of ocular deception, and give to those 
looking at them the impression that these paintings 
are real scenes. The system of decoration can only be 
explained if we think of the habits and tastes of the 
Alexandrian epoch of which we have just spoken. We 
have seen that it had become a sort of mania among 
great personages to hang precious pictures on the walls 
of their houses. But the luxury is an expensive one, 
and not everybody could indulge in such costly fancies. 
It was necessary to be king of Egypt or of Syria, or at 
least a powerful minister or dreaded general, to have 
long oppressed the nations or unscrupulously pillaged 
neighbouring countries, in order to have these immense 
halls built, which historians describe with admiration, 
upheld by a hundred pilasters or a hundred marble 
columns, with marvellous statues before them, and 
pictures of the masters in the intervals. Citizens 
managed more cheaply. They had false pilasters 
painted in fresco^ on their walls, framing false paint- 
ings, and in their small houses, when looking at the 

^ I have used the word "fresco" here and elsewhere, although certain 
savants consider it quite improper. Letronne denied absolutely that 
the ancient pictures were real frescoes, in the sense in which we now 
understand the word. M. Otto Donner, on the contrary, in a study 



POMPEII. ?.89 

walls of their peristyle doubtless felt a pleasure like 
that of the kings and the great lords, when they 
walked in their palaces in the midst of masterpieces. 
Fresco was therefore an economical means, at the 
disposal of small folk, for imitating the example of the 
rich. As it requires rapidity of execution and allows 
of imperfections of detail, artists took advantage of it 
in order to work more quickly. They could work 
cheaper, and art became an industry. Petronius says : 
" That it was the audacity of the Egyptians which first 
invented the abridgment of the great art" {JEgypiiorum 
audacia tarn magnce artis compendiariam invenit)^ 
and this opinion is very probable. It is natural that 
the country where people had the spectacle of the 
irritating luxury of great personages incessantly before 
their eyes, should also have been that where they 
sought more cheaply to procure themselves some of 
their enjoyments. Petronius adds that the employment 
of this cheap process ruined painting. This is also easy 
to understand. The poor, or, if you will, the less well- 
off, sought by some means or other to imitate the ex- 
ample of the rich ; the rich, in their turn, were not long 
in borrowing from the poor. As the fresco painters 
usually attained from habit a sujfficiently satisfactory 
execution, they ended by contenting themselves with 
the copies of famous pictures, and original painting was 

preceding Professor Helbig's Wandgemalde, proves that the greater 
portion of the pictures that decorate the towns of Campania are 
painted in fresco. "Without joining in the debate, Avhich is not within 
my province, I consider myself authorised by M. Conner's conclusions 
to designate the Pompeian paintings by the name of frescoes. 

^ Petronius, Sat. 2. Professor Helbig has been the first to explain 
this phrase of Petronius satisfactorily. 



390 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

no longer encouraged: hence the anger of critics and 
connoisseurs. Professor Helbig remarks that Pliny 
and Petronius express themselves on the subject of 
" this Egyptian invention " in the same tone in which 
certain amateurs of our day speak of photography, 
which they accuse of having ruined true art. 

Everything, however, confirms the origin which Pro- 
fessor Helbig attributes to the paintings of Herculaneum 
and Pompeii. The pictures of which they are copies 
must indeed have belonged to the time of the successors 
of Alexander. They plainly bear the stamp of that 
epoch, and have all its characteristics. One of the 
great changes which then took place in the Greek world 
was that Monarchy almost everywhere replaced the 
Eepublic. Around the monarch and his wife, officers, 
ministers, servants, poets, and artists gathered — in short, 
a court was formed, and, as always happens, the influ- 
ence of the court soon made itself felt in public 
manners. They became more polished, elegant, and 
refined. Distinction of manner, charm of mind, con- 
versational refinement, and the delicate pleasures of 
society, were prized above all things. In great worldly 
assemblages where the two sexes meet, love naturally 
becomes the main interest, and so it assumed great 
importance in the society and consequently in the 
literature of that time. Poetry is henceforth to live 
upon it, and poetry will be imitated by the arts. But 
love, as usual, painted by the Alexandrian artists is 
not that mad passion which Euripides has represented 
it in his Phcedra. Professor Helbig is right in saying 
that their painting no longer draws its inspiration from 
the Epics, like that of Polygnotus, or even from the 



POMPEII. 391 

ancient tragic theatre ; it rather borrows its subjects 
from the idyll and the elegy, the favourite forms of 
Hellenistic poetry. With them, love is a mixture of 
gallantry and sentimentalism. They delight to repre- 
sent goddesses and heroines afflicted by some amorous 
fortune. (Enone deserted by Paris, Ariadne on the 
shores of Naxos, gazing after the ship which bears away 
her lover, or Venus watching the hunter Adonis die in 
her arms. But they are careful that the grief of these 
beautiful deserted ones shall not impair their loveliness. 
Their despair has assumed very elegant attitudes ; they 
are disconsolate, but adorned ; they wear necklaces and 
double bracelets, and their tresses are fastened with 
golden nets. Besides, there is rarely wanting, in a 
corner of the picture, some little Cupid, to lend a more 
genial air to the scene when it threatens to become too 
severe. In the frescoes of Pompeii, Cupids are still more 
numerous than in the pictures of Watteau, Boucher, 
and other painters of our eighteenth century. They 
form the usual train of Venus, help her to adorn herself, 
hand her her gems, and hold the mirror in which she 
gazes. They bring her to Mars, who awaits her ; they 
surround wounded Adonis, draw aside his garments, and 
bear his crook and his spear. It is again a Cupid who 
leads Diana into the cave of Endymion and shows her 
the beautiful youth asleep. When CEnone seeks by 
her despair to detain her faithless spouse who is about 
to leave her, Paris is indifferent to her reproaches, and 
seems scarcely to listen to them : and with good 
reason, indeed, for the artist has represented behind 
him a Cupid bending caressingly towards his ear, and 
doubtless discoursing to him of his new passion. In 



392 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

these different paintings the Cupids are only accessories, 
but there are others where they form the entire picture. 
We are shown them all alone, and engaged in occupa- 
tions which are usually the lot of man. They dance, 
they sing, they play, they feast ; with whip upraised, 
they drive a chariot drawn by swans, or endeavour with 
great pains to guide a team of lions. They gather 
grapes and grind corn in a mill, aided by little donkeys, 
which they lead with garlands of flowers. They sell, 
they buy, they hunt, they angle ; and this last amuse- 
ment appears to our artist so divine a recreation, that 
they several times attribute it to Venus herself. One 
of the most pleasing pictures, and the best known, in 
this fanciful and coquettish style is the Cupid-seller. 
An old woman has just caught a little Cupid in a cage, 
and, holding him up by his wings, offers him to a young 
girl, who desires to buy him. The latter does not seem 
to be entirely a beginner, for she already holds another 
Cupid upon her knees. She, nevertheless, looks with 
great curiosity at the one she is going to buy, and 
who stretches his hands joyously towards his new 
mistress. 

1 have already said a word about what became of 
mythology in the new school of painting. We saw that 
the old myths lost their deep and serious meaning. One 
of the usual processes of these painters, when they take 
up subjects to which ancient art had lent an ideal size, 
is to reduce them, as far as they can, to human propor- 
tions. They like to entirely efface the distance separat- 
ing gods from men, and to treat heroic legends like 
adventures of everyday life. It is evident that, in 
painting the loves of the gods, the artist always had 



POMPEII. 393 

before his eyes what passed at the courts of the 
Seleucides or of the Ptolemies, In the famous "Judg- 
ment," Venus, who wishes to be preferred, coquets with 
Paris like a woman of the world ; while Polyphemus, 
seated on the sea-shore, sings his sorrow to his lyre, a 
Cupid is seen arriving on a dolphin, with a letter to 
him from Galatea. Mars and Venus are prudent lovers 
who would fain not be discovered while engaged in 
their sweet encounters. They are shown by a Pompeian 
painter cautiously guarded by a dog, in order that they 
may be warned of the approach of the indiscreet. This 
is indeed a very vulgar way of introducing real life into 
heroic legends. 

The character of these paintings clearly shows their 
age ; it is truly Alexandrian art which we have before 
our eyes, but is it certain that this art was faithfully 
reproduced in the Pompeian frescoes, and how far may 
they be used as a means of judging it ? This is a 
delicate question which Professor Helbig has handled 
in a very interesting manner. The first shows, by a 
study of the very conditions of painting at Pompeii, 
that there must be inevitable differences between the 
originals and the copies. The Pompeian houses are 
usually small ; the space which the architect gave over 
to the painter was not, as a rule, of great extent, and 
was little suited for what the Greeks styled " megalo- 
graphy." In the arts, dimension has much importance, 
and often great subjects, when confined within too 
small a frame, become character pictures. This is what 
happens at Pompeii, where the frescoes are generally 
nothing more than reproductions of larger and more 
extensive compositions. Let us add that if these 



394 AHCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

frescoes appear to us somewhat lacking in variety, the 
fault was not altogether imputable to the Alexandrian 
school, whence they proceed. Among the innumerable 
subjects offered to them by this school, the Pompeian 
artists were forced to make a choice. They took, in 
preference, cheerful and gay scenes, avoiding those 
which appeared to them too mournful. " A violent 
picture overwhelms the soul," said Seneca,^ These 
good townsfolk who desired to live joyously in this 
happy country, at the foot of the verdant slopes of 
Vesuvius, would not have liked all the horrors of 
ancient mythology to be presented to their gaze. The 
crimes of the family of Agamemnon, the death of 
Hippolytus, torn by the thorns of the way, had, as we 
know, given rise to famous pictures of the Alexandrian 
artists. We do not find them again at Pompeii. They 
were not in their place in the halls reserved for calm 
family joys. When Pompeian artists ventured to paint 
some less pleasing scene, they, for the most part, modi- 
fied it. Circe bound to a furious bull, and Actseon 
devoured by his dogs, are with them only pretexts for 
studies of nude women and agreeable landscapes. In 
reproducing a picture in a fresco, it is inevitably per- 
verted. Fresco does not in the same degree allow of 
that refinement of touch and perfection of detail which 
were the chief qualities of the Alexandrian masters. 
These, too, were not the qualities mainly sought after 
by the Pompeian painters, and it may even be main- 
tained that they did not need them. Now that the 
houses of Pompeii have no longer roofs, we see them 

^Seneca, Deira., II. 2. 



POMPEII. 395 

illumined by a dazzling sun which brings out their 
least defects, but they were not made for this glare. 
The halls where they are placed were usually only 
lighted by the door, and precautions were even taken 
that all the glow which flooded the atrium should 
not enter by this one opening. Awnings stretched 
from one column to the other made a shade before 
these chambers, where the inhabitants passed the hot 
hours of the day. • In this half-darkness, imperfection 
of detail did not appear, and the artists could, without 
impropriety, neglect some of the merits of the models 
they copied. 

In spite of these reserves, which are indispensable, 
it may be admitted without rashness that the frescoes 
of Herculaneum and Pompeii give a sufficiently correct 
idea of Alexandrian painting. Professor Helbig is so 
convinced of this that he would fain identify again, in 
these incomplete copies, some of those renowned paint- 
ings whose beauty has been extolled by ancient critics. 
This is an undertaking which may at first sight appear 
somewhat hazardous, but it must not be forgotten that 
if these pictures are now lost, we at least retain some 
mementoes of them. They are mentioned in the writers 
who have handed us down the history of ancient paint- 
ing ; the poets, and especially those of the Anthologij, 
have rarely omitted to devote a few lines to a descrip- 
tion of them ; more or less exact copies of them are 
found in bas-reliefs, and on vases ; and, in fine, what is 
most important, they must have been often reproduced 
on the walls of the Campanian towns. On comparing 
these different copies, and controlling them by the 
information afforded us by critics and poets, we perceive 



396 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

what each artist has taken from the originals, and we 
get to reconstruct it, at least so far as regards its 
entirety and its great lines. Thus it is that, by an 
effort of science and sagacity, Professor Helbig gives us 
back two famous pictures of Nicias, his " Andromeda " 
and his " lo." The first is twice reproduced at Pompeii, 
in proportions that are not usual there ; the other only 
appears once, but has fortunately been found again in 
the house of Livia, on the Palatine. They are two fine 
pictures which appear made to match each other, and 
are sufficiently alike for us to think them by the same 
hand. The copyists must have adhered to the general 
arrangement and chief qualities of the original, and they 
therefore allow us to picture to ourselves what those 
two works of the Athenian artist must have been, who, 
according to Pliny, excelled in painting women. This 
is also what happens in connection with a picture still 
more famous than those of Nicias. Two small frescoes 
at Pompeii represent Medea about to slay her children. 
Scholars agree in admitting that they are imitations of a 
masterpiece of Timomachus, but rather imperfect imita- 
tions. Beside Medea, the painters have placed her two 
sons, playing a dice, under the supervision of their tutor. 
This dramatic detail, this striking contrast between the 
careless joy of the children and the terrible preoccupa- 
tion of the mother, evidently belong to the original 
picture. The remainder, in the Pompeian frescoes, is 
less happy, Medea's face, especially, being wanting in 
character. Fortunately, a " Medea " was found at Her- 
culaneum of larger dimensions, and which displays a 
more assured talent. This time she is represented 
alone, without her children, with mouth half open and 



POMPEII. 397 

eyes distraught.^ Her fingers clutch the hilt of the 
sword with a convulsive movement, she appears to be 
torn by unspeakable sorrow. This figure, one of the 
finest that remain to us from antiquity, is certainly by 
a painter of genius. It is a thing the Pompeian copy- 
ists would not have imagined ; the hand of a master is 
found in it. Thus, by placing the group of children from 
the Pompeian frescoes beside the Medea of Herculaneum, 
we are sure to have all the picture of Timomachus.^ 
It is therefore the whole of an important epoch of Greek 
art which has been preserved for us in this corner of 
Italy. The pleasure we feel in looking on] these pictures 
increases when we reflect that they alone represent a 
great school of painting, but this certainly does not 
mean that they only interest us because they recall 
lost masterpieces, and that they are unworthy of being 
studied for themselves. I fear, lest by dint of repeating 
the words "imitators" and "copyists," we may have unduly 
depreciated the merit of these unknown artists. To be 
content to call them decorators is not to them justice. 
They doubtless imitated, yet with certain independence. 
They were not wholly the slaves of their models, but 
interpreted them freely, modifying them according to 
the conditions of the places they were to paint, or the 
humour of the master they had to please. What proves 
this beyond doubt is that a great number of replicas 



^ Ovid {Trist. II. 526) seems to recall the picture of whicli we 
speak when he says : Inque oculos f acinus harhara inater habet. 

2 We have the proof that the Medea of Herculaneum, which decorated 
a very narrow space of wall, was detached from a larger fresco. The 
picture of which it originally fgrined part very prohably contained 
the children and their tutor. 



398 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

are found at Pompeii, evidently from the same originals 
but never alike. So something personal entered into 
the work of these artists, which fostered their talents, 
prevented them from being mere artisans, and made 
them veritable painters. It was this which enabled 
them to invent for themselves when needful. They 
rarely did so, being forced to work quickly, and finding 
it more expeditious to borrow from others than to take 
the pains to create. We have remarked, however, 
that they sometimes took their inspirations from scenes 
of which they had been witnesses, and painted char- 
acter pictures of inimitable truthfulness. But, whether 
imitating or inventing, they do all with an ease and 
grace, rapidity of execution and sureness of hand, 
which we cannot help admiring. Our admiration in- 
creases when we remember that they worked for the 
burghers of a small town, and, above all, when we reflect 
that in all the Koman world there must have been the 
same tastes as at Pompeii, and that there must have 
been artists everywhere capable of the same work. 
This is what astonishes and confuses our minds. 
Historians tell us that there were no longer painters 
of genius at that time, but the paintings of Pompeii 
show us that painters of talent were never more 
numerous. In our days, we boast that we put ease 
within the reach of the greatest number, and popularise 
well-being. This is a great boon. In the first century, 
something of the kind had been done for the arts. 
Thanks to these convenient processes, which permitted 
masterpieces to be disseminated, they had ceased to be 
the privilege of the few, in order to become the pleasure 
of all. 



POMPEII. 399 

IV. 

WHENCE THE EESEMBLANCES COME THAT ARE EEMARKED 
BETWEEN THE PAINTINGS AT POMPEII AND THE POETRY 
OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE — THE PAINTERS AND THE 
POETS INSPIRED BY THE SAME SUBJECTS — LATIN 
LITERATURE IMITATES THE POETIC SCHOOL OF 
ALEXANDRIA — CATULLUS — VIRGIL — PROPERTIUS — 
OVID — DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PAINTERS OF 
POMPEII AND THE ROMAN POETS — THE PAINTING 
NEVER BECAME ROMAN — REPUGNANCE OF THE 
POMPEIIAN ARTISTS TO HANDLE SUBJECTS DRAWN 
FROM THE HISTORY OR THE LEGENDS OF ROME — IS 
POMPEII REALLY A GREEK TOWN ?— NATIONAL CHAR- 
ACTER OF THE POETRY OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 

On closely studying the Pompeian paintings, we are 
forcibly struck by the resemblance they bear to certain 
poems of the great epoch of Latin letters, and, above 
all, to those of the elegiacs or didactics who sing of 
mythology or of love. Among the poets, as among the 
painters, the sa,me subjects are incessantly reproduced, 
and they are treated in nearly the same manner. They 
both love to express the same feelings, affect the same 
qualities, and omit to avoid the same effects. Must 
we conclude from this that the painters were inspired 
by the poets, and took the subjects of their pictures 
from their works ? We shall presently see that this 
was not so, and that it is easy to demonstrate that 
they remained almost entirely strangers to the litera- 
ture of Eome. Must we believe, on the contrary, that 
it wq,s the poets who imitated the painters ? Thi§ 



400 ARCFJi:OLOGTCAL RAMBLES. 

supposition would scarcely be more probable, and, at 
any rate, it is needless. We have a very simple means 
of explaining all. If they resemble each other, it is 
because they drew from the same source. Painters 
and poets worked both from the same models. They 
were pupils of the masters of Alexandria, and this is 
how they might happen to meet, without even being 
acquainted with each other. 

We know that the Eomans do not j)Ossess a truly 
original literature, and that they always lived by 
borrowing. They began by imitating the classic poetry 
of Greece, i.e. that which flourished from Homer down 
to the time of Alexander. This, it must be owned, was 
to choose their models well, yet I do not think they 
must be allowed too much credit for their preference. 
In those remote times they were scarcely in a 
condition to distinguish ancient from modern Greek 
literature, the writers of the Periclean age from those 
who flourished at the court of the Ptolemies. The 
choice they then made is explained less by the refine- 
ment of their taste than by existent circumstances. 
The old Greek poets, although in society somewhat 
thrown into the shade by the glory of new writers, 
continued to reign in the schools with undivided sway. 
The grammarians explained them to their pupils and 
made them the foundation of public education. As 
the Eomans first knew Greece through the inter- 
mediary of the professors who came to educate their 
children, they were naturally led to admire and 
imitate the writers who were admired in the schools, 
that is to say, those of the classic age. It must also be 
said that these old poets, by their grandeur and their 



POMPEII. 401 

simplicity, suited an energetic and youthful race about 
to conquer the world. Unhappily, the virile virtues of 
the first Eomans were not proof against their fortunes, 
and at the moment when the former began to wane, 
the very progress of their conquests brought them into 
a more direct contact with the Greeks. Having 
become acquainted with Greece in the schools and 
by means of books, they were about to see it at 
home and to frequent it habitually. At Athens, at 
Pergamus, and at Alexandria, those great towns they 
so delighted to visit, and of which several had been 
the capitals of powerful kingdoms, they found an 
enlightened, polished, and witty society, in whose midst 
they were happy to live with a literature differing 
from that taught them by their masters, and which 
charmed them at once. In vain friends of the past 
resisted. Cicero complained bitterly of " these lovers 
of Euphorion " who dared to banter Ennius and pre- 
ferred a wit of Alexandria to him. Lucretius also 
remained faithful to Ennius and the ancient poets, 
acknowledged them for his masters, and loved to 
imitate their vigorous and sober verses ; but the new 
school had on, its side what brings success, youth and 
women. Those beautiful freed women, who reigned in 
fashionable assemblies and governed political men, 
loved to repeat the verses of Calvus and Catullus. 
Thenceforth the imitation of the Alexandrians slips in 
among nearly all the poets, and it especially prevails 
in Ovid and in Propertius, who proclaims himself, 
without ambiguity, the pupil of Callimachus and of 
Philetas. 

This is why the Eoman elegiacs have so often come 
2c 



402 AECH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

face to face with the painters of Pompeii. These 
resemblances are not simply curiosities, agreeable to 
remark in passing. Professor Helbig thinks that a 
serious interest attaches to them, and that they 
may help us to a knowledge of the literature of the 
Augustan age. The poets of Alexandria being lost, it 
is difficult to say how far those of Eome faithfully 
produced them, and to distinguish what they borrowed 
from what is really their own. In order to ascertain 
this, let us compare them with the painters of Pompeii. 
When their descriptions faithfully recall some Pom- 
peian picture, we shall conclude that the painter and 
the poet had a common model before them, and that 
they are both imitators. 

"We do not know to whom Catullus owes the most 
beautiful of his poems, that in which he represents 
Ariadne deserted by Theseus and consoled by Bacchus. 
M. Eiese thinks that he translated it from Callimachus,^ 
but he has given no positive proof of this. What is 
certain is, that this subject is often found reproduced 
on the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and that, 
consequently, it must have been very common among 
the poets of Alexandria. Furthermore, Catullus has 
certainly treated it in the Alexandrian manner. 
Mixing with strokes of deep passion many graceful 
diminutives, he does not, in this terrible moment, 
neglect to describe his heroine's toilette; to speak 
to us, by the way, about her fair hair and her 
charming little eyes ; and lastly, to tell us that when 
she advances into the waves to try and follow her 

^ JiJicin Museum, XXII. p. 498. 



POMPEII. 403 

fleeing lover, she is careful to raise her dress to her 
knees — 

" Mollia nudatce tollentem tegmina surce." 

Virgil also began by yielding to the taste of the 
moment and imitating the Alexandrians. This is what 
explains the defects imputed to his first works. In his 
Bucolics some blemishes are found surprising in a 
mind so exact and subtle. The Arcadian shepherds 
who inhabit the shores of the Mincio, the statesmen 
become graziers, who weave reed baskets in solitary 
caves, and play upon a rustic pipe, to console them- 
selves for the infidelities of an actress who has followed 
an officer, this manner of transferring to the country the 
events of the town, and of putting political allusions 
among pastoral discussions, reminds Doctor Helbig of 
the strange fancies of certain Pompeian landscapes, 
where town and country are found oddly mingled to- 
gether, — elegant porticoes in the solitude where Poly- 
phemus leads his flock to pasture, and an Ionian temple, 
crowned with garlands on the heights of Caucasus, near 
the vulture who devours Prometheus. In Propertius, 
the influence of the Alexandrians is yet more visible 
still, and his elegies show more points of resemblance 
with the paintings of Pompeii than do Virgil's Eclogues. 
Of mythology it is brimful. Whether sad or joyous, 
all his sentiments are expressed by allusions to the 
ancient legends. He has no more delicate eulogy for 
his mistress than to compare her with the heroines of 
ancient times. If he one day surprises her asleep with 
her head leant upon her arm, she immediately reminds 
him of Ariadne stretched upon the shore of Naxos, 



464 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

Andromeda after her wondrous deliverance, or the 
exhausted Bacchante who falls overcome by invincible 
sleep on the plains of Thessaly. These are personages 
well known to those who have visited the Campanian 
towns, for they are found there everywhere. When 
Cynthia, after a long resistance which has much dis- 
tressed the poet, at length yields to his love, he 
celebrates his victory by an explosion of mythology : 
" No, the son of Atrseus was not more joyful when he 
saw the fortress of Troy fall at his feet. Ulysses, after 
all his journeying, did not land with so much pleasure 
on the shores of his cherished isle. Electra, when she 
beheld her brother, whose ashes she thought she held 
in lier hands, or the daughter of Minos, on seeing 
Theseus, whom she had just delivered from the laby- 
rinth, did not feel as much happiness as I knew last 
night. Let her but once again grant me her favours, 
and I shall hold myself immortal ! " ^ The little 
Cupids we have so often found in the Pompeian paint- 
ings are not wanting in the poetry of Propertius either. 
When he decrees himself a sort of triumph for having 
acquainted the Eomans with the Alexandrian elegy in 
all its beauty, he joins the Cupids in it, and wills that 
they shall take their places in the same car as himself. 

" Et mec'iim incurruparvi vedantur A mores." ' 

In one of his most pleasing pieces, imitated by Andre 
Chenier, he relates that one night, after a debauch, he 
wandered alone with unsteady steps about the sleeping 
own in search of some guilty love adventure. Suddenly, 
he falls into the midst of a troop of little children 

' Propertius, II. 14. == lb., III. i. 11. 



POMPEII. 405 

whom his fright prevents him from counting. " Some 
carried tiny torches, others held arrows, and others 
again seemed to be preparing bonds to bind me. All 
were naked. Anon, one of them, more resolute, cried : 
' There he is ! seize him ; you know him well ; him it is 
that an angry woman has charged us to give her back." 
He spoke, and already I felt a knot press my neck ; the 
rest approach : ' Chain him, scold him, and take him back 
repentant and happy to Cynthia's house."! Is this not 
the subject for a charming picture which might be placed 
opposite the " Cupid-seller " ? 

But it is Ovid especially who seems most to have 
profited by the poets of Alexandria, so it is also he who 
most frequently recalls the Pompeian paintings. It 
would be easy to choose among these pictures a certain 
number which might serve as it were for illustrations 
to his works, so much the poet and the painter at 
times resemble each other. They represent lo delivered 
by Mercury, Hercules spinning with Omphale, Paris 
carving (Enone's name on the trunks of trees, Europa 
" holding the bull's horn with one hand and resting the 
other on his back, while the wind shakes and swells her 
garments." Further back I have mentioned the picture 
where the disconsolate Polyphemus receives a letter 
from Gralatea, brought to him by a Cupid mounted upon 
a dolphin. This strange invention at once sets one 
thinking of Ovid's Hero'ides. These are love-letters 
which lead us to suppose not only that people knew how 
to write, and wrote much, at the time of the Trojan war, 
but that there were then means of forwarding epistles 

' Propertius, II. 29. 



406 ARCH^OLOGICAL E AMBLES. 

even when addressed to persons whose whereabouts 
were unknown, or when one was consigned to some 
desert isle. These ways are little in keeping with 
such far-off times. For it to be conceivable that women 
should write such long letters, fraught with= such bril- 
liant thoughts and so much knowledge of the human 
heart, it must be supposed that great pains were taken 
to bring them up well. So the poet says in express 
terms that they had had masters, and that they had 
been taught the arts which are the ornament of infancy.^ 
" In reality, they are only contemporaries of Corinna," 
who had frequented good society and learned the usages 
of gallantry in "The Art of Loving." It is Ovid's 
usual system as much as possible to rejuvenate this 
ancient mythology, and the gods do not escape any more 
than the heroes. With him they quite lose that antique 
air which rendered them venerable. He makes men of 
them, and men like those among whom he passed 
his life. Hercules is no longer anything more than 
a common athlete who fights Achelotis after the 
same fashion as those shown to the people in the public 
games.2 When Minerva defies Arachne, she sets to 
work like a buxom workwoman, tucking up her 
gown in order to be less encumbered, and setting her 
shuttle flying among the threads with an ardour that 
makes her forget her grief.^ Jupiter's household is 
entirely wanting in gravity, and Juno is continually 
busied in looking after her husband, who gives her 
great cause for jealousy. This custom of representing 
the gods quite like men, and giving antique mythology 

lOvid, Met., IX. 717. ^ jh IX. 36. ^ lb., VI. 60. 



POMPEII. 407 

a modern air in order to render it lifelike, we have also 
remarked in the paintings of Pompeii. It is a proof 
that it already existed among the poets of Alexandria. 
But Ovid goes much further than his masters. He 
mingles with everything a species of humour and 
buffoonery not at all in keeping with the spirit of the 
Alexandrians. While imitating, he has deeply changed 
them. M. Eohde, in his book on Greek romance, 
remarks that if he owes them the foundation of his 
works, he differs from them in the execution.^ The 
Alexandrians were for the most part scrupulous and 
exact, critics as much as poets, very severe towards 
others and towards themselves, who, desiring to please 
people of the world, expended great care on their 
verses, polished and chiselled their phrases, strove to 
put in wit or knowledge everywhere, and consequently 
produced but little. They certainly had a pupil in 
that Helvius Cinna, the friend of Catullus, who took 
nine years to finish a poem, and by dint of working at 
it, rendered it so obscure that he immediately had com- 
mentators, and to understand it came to be considered a 
glory. Ovid was not one of those syllable- scrapers, 
one of those fastidious ones who are never content with 
themselves. He was quick of thought and swift of 
hand, and his pleasure and his talent were to improvise. 
He charmed the society in which he moved, not only 
by following its tastes and flattering its caprices, but by 
continvially dazzling it with new works. It may also 
be said of him that he supplies the place of those 
" room pictures " of the Alexandrian school — so careful, 

^ E. Rohde, Der GriecMsche Roman, p. 125. 



408 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

SO finished by bold frescoes, full of unpleasing negli- 
gences and defects — but in which we find a^fertility of 
resource, a wealth of detail, and a rapidity of execution 
that charm even those most inclined to be critical. 
This is one resemblance more with the painters of 
Pompeii. 

But these painters and poets do not always resemble 
each other. Some differences also exist, to be noted 
with care, since they complete our knowledge of them. 
I do not mean only those arising from the varied con- 
ditions of their arts : these could not be escaped, and 
recur everywhere. When Horace says that poetry is 
like painting, he does not mean to express an absolute 
truth subject to no exception. That acute critic well 
knew that if their aim is identical, they follow different 
ways in order to reach it. Painting, which works 
directly for the eyes, is forced indeed to give its per- 
sonages fine attitudes. It can present nothing'to the view 
that would shock it, for the image does not become effaced; 
the impression would remain and grow more irksome 
from its very duration. The poet, on the contrary, who 
appeals to the imagination, and paints with a stroke, 
may allow himself vagaries which would not be allowed 
in a painter. I will only instance a single example. 
The legend relates that lo changed into a cow, and it 
is under this form that she is pursued by the anger of 
Juno, who confides her to the watchful guard of Argus, 
the shepherd with the hundred eyes. Ovid accepts the 
legend as it is, changing nothing and concealing nothing. 
On the contrary, it amuses and pleases him, and its 
oddity is just what he develops with greatest zest. He 
depicts the unhappy lo still unconscious of her meta- 



POMPEII. 409 

morphosis. "She would fain implore her keeper and 
stretch forth her hands to him," but no longer finds an 
arm to stretch.^ She strives to speak, but her words 
are bellowings which frighten her. She approaches a 
fountain where, in happier times, she was wont to mirror 
herself, but directly she sees her horns she flies, terror- 
stricken, before her image. All this is said delicately, 
with a tone of pleasing irony, without taking into 
account that lo's father himself, in spite of his grief, 
cannot refrain from a comic reflection. " And I," says 
he, " who sought thee a spouse, and thought to give 
myself a son-in-law and grand-children, it is in my herd 
that I must choose thee a husband, it is in my herd 
that I must look for grand-children." A painter could 
not permit himself these pleasantries. It would be 
difficult for him to excite our compassion for a cow, to 
interest us in its misfortune, and make us desire its 
well-being. Therefore, in spite of Juno, lo will remain 
for him a beautiful young captive girl, watched over by 
a wicked gaoler, who raises her eyes and stretches her 
arms towards heaven to invoke a deliverer. AtHhe 
very utmost, the most scrupulous artists, determined at 
any cost to respect the tradition, will draw upon her 
charming brow two little horns, half concealed by her 
tresses, and this is the only memento that the meta- 
morphosis of the daughter of Inachus will leave in a 
picture. It is the same with respect to her keeper. 
The hundred eyes bestowed on him by the legend 



^ " nia etiam supplex Argo quum brachia vellet, 
Tendere, non habuit qua brachia tcnderet Argo." 

—Ovid, Met., I. 629. 



410 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

greatly exhilarate Ovid, who congratulates him on being 
able to turn about as he lists without losing sight of his 
victim — 

"Ante oculos To, quamvis aversus, habehat." 

Let us suppose the painter resolved to adhere faith- 
ful to the legend, he will never produce anything but a 
grotesque figure. He escapes the difficulty by making 
Argus like an ordinary shepherd, and contenting him- 
self with putting upon his shoulder a leopard skin, 
whose spots must represent in the eyes of a complacent 
spectator the hundred eyes of Argus. This is how the 
painter grapples with difficulties non-existent for the 
poet, but which sometimes oblige the former to treat 
the same subject in a diffiirent manner. 

These difficulties, I repeat, were inevitable, since 
they are inherent in the very conditions of the two 
arts, which cannot be changed, so it is needless further 
to insist upon them. But there is another more 
important, and which deeply separates the painters of 
Pompeii from the Latin poets. The other arts which 
Greece gave to Eome seem to have made some effort to 
acclimatise themselves in their new country, and to have 
in some degree adopted its qualities and its character, 
but painting never became Eoman. Not that it had 
more cause than the other arts to complain of the 
welcome received from the Eomans. From the day 
when Paulus CEmilius sent for Metrodorus from 
Athens to paint the pictures that were to adorn his 
triumph, and charged him to educate his children, 
great artists found consideration and fortune in Rome. 
Fine pictures were paid for at as high a price as the 



POMPEII. 411 

statues of the masters, and if they were very anxious to 
fill the public places and the porticoes with marble or 
brazen images of the gods or of great men, they were 
not less so to adorn public or private monuments with 
frescoes, and the example of Pompeii shows how general 
this taste became. What proves that painting was not 
without honour in Rome, even in the most ancient 
times, is that it was one of the first arts practised by 
the Eomans themselves. Before the time of the Punic 
Wars, a patrician, a man belonging to an ancient and 
illustrious race, did not disdain to become a pupil of 
the Greek artists, and decorate a temple with his own 
hand. His talent made him so renowned that thence- 
forth he was only called Pabius the Painter {Fabius 
Pidor), and his family kept the name. From that 
moment downward, Romans are not wanting in the 
lists of painters who made themselves famous, and 
among those whose memory Pliny has preserved for 
us, there is one who was so proud of his country that 
he never quitted the toga, even when he had to climb 
some scaffolding,^ much in the same way that Buffon is 
said to have donned court dress while composing his 
great work. But whether he wore the toga or the 
pallium, the artist remained Greek, Greek painting 
did not change its method on settling in Italy, modified 
its habits in nothing, and sought its inspirations only 
in the memories of its former country. Letronne is 
right in saying " that it was a plant which flourished 
everywhere as on its native ground, scarcely feeling the 
influence of the change of soil and climate." 

'Pliny, XXXV. 37. 



412 ARCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

It is indeed thus that it appears to us at Pompeii. 
It is surprising to see to what a degree painters who 
worked in an Italian town, for people who delighted 
in nothing more than to be called Eoman citizens, and 
at a time when the sentiment of national glory was 
more alive than ever, remained unaffected by the 
influence of Eome. While, by their side, sculptors, 
also Greek in origin, delighted to people the public 
places with images of the imperial family, they never 
thought of painting in the temples decorated by them, 
the exploits of Augustus or of his successors. The 
history of Eome — that glorious history which astonished 
all the world — never inspired them. In their mytho- 
logical paintings, the subjects are always borrowed 
from Greek traditions and legends. Above all, there 
was at this time a great Eoman poem, consecrated by 
public admiration, which all the world knew by heart, 
at Pompeii as much as elsewhere, for we have proofs 
of it — Virgil's ^neid. This work, in so many ways 
connected with the Homeric Epos, was not of a kind to 
displease Greek artists. They did not find themselves 
abroad in a poem in which Greece is everywhere 
present, and whose heroes are borrowed from the Iliad. 
Yet among all the paintings of Pompeii, only five or 
six pictures have been found whose subjects were taken 
from the j^neid, and even of these one is a caricature. 
It represents a young long-tailed monkey, covered with a 
coat of mail, encumbered with a sword, carrying an old 
monkey on his shoulders, and dragging a young one 
along by the hand : it is .^ueas, leaving Troy with his 
father and his child. Of all the rest, a single one has 
some importance. This is a very faithful imitation of 



POMPEII. 413 

a scene from the twelfth book of the ^neid. ^neas, 
struck in the course of the battle by an arrow, leans 
one hand upon his javelin and the other on the shoulder 
of his weeping son, yielding his leg to the physician, 
old lapyx, who endeavours to draw the dart from the 
wound. Above him, Venus, his mother, descending from 
the sky, brings the dittany that is to cure him. It is 
not a good picture. The attitudes of the personages 
are awkward, the whole is wanting in ease, and it is 
seen that the subject not being familiar to the artist, he 
did not treat it with pleasure. The adventure of Dido, 
which appears made in order to tempt a painter of 
talent, has only been two or three times represented at 
Pompeii. This is little, indeed, it must be owned, 
especially if we reflect that the story of Ariadne de- 
serted by Theseus, which so resembles that of Dido, has 
given rise to more than thirty works, some of them of 
large dimensions and remarkable execution. 

It has, it is true, sometimes been said that Pompeii 
was more a Greek than a Roman town, and that in 
excavating for its works inspired by the legions and 
traditions of Greece, the artists followed its taste. But 
this opinion, although it has been widely spread,^ is 
none the less very incorrect. From the time when 
they received the right of citizenship, the inhabitants 
of Pompeii considered themselves Eomans, Latin 
is not only their official language, used by magistrates 

^ Mazois said at the beginning of his second vohime : "It will 
perhaps cause surprise that I class the houses of Pompeii with Roman 
dwellings, for this kind of Greek taste which prevails in the ruins 
seems to have accustomed everybody to look upon the houses of the 
town as Greek." 



414 AKCHJilOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

in decrees — it is the common idiom, that of the poor 
as well as of the rich; not only of peasants but of 
townspeople, used no less in private than in public life. 
Children who chalk their jokes on the walls, young 
folk addressing a salutation to their mistresses, idlers 
who celebrate their favourite gladiator on leaving the 
public games, and frequenters of taverns or of question- 
able resorts who want to describe their impressions, 
do it in Latin almost exclusively, Oscan and Greek 
being always the exception. The Pompeians not only 
speak the language of their masters, but share all their 
feelings. The Emperor has no more devoted subjects, 
and they were the first to adopt the worship of 
Augustus. Doubtless we are not surprised that official 
inscriptions should be full of expressions of respect 
and affection for the sovereign and his family. What 
astonishes us more is to see that those chalked upon the 
walls by men of the people, who can be less suspected 
of flattery and untruth, often contain similar protesta- 
tions. Thus we often find the cry of "Life to the 
Emperor " {Augusto feliciter), and one of those who 
writes upon the wall adds this thought: "That the 
health of princes makes the happiness of their subjects " 
(Vohis salvis felices sumus jpertetuo)} Another must 
needs send to Eome, the former enemy, a distant 
salutation : " Roma vale." ^ If the masterpieces of 
Greek literature are not unknown at Pompeii, Eoman 
literature is still more current there. Cicero is 
sufficiently read for him to be parodied,^ while 

1 Corp. insc. lat., IV. No. 1174. "^Ih., No. 1745. 

' It is impossible not to recognise in a very light inscription {Corp. 
insc, lat., IV. No. 1261) a parody on a famous passage of the Verrines. 



POMPEII, 415 

Propertius, Ovid, and even Lucretius, are quoted 
continually. But it is especially the ^neid that 
appears to have been the pleasure and the study of 
all. Virgil had interested the whole of Italy in his 
work by singing all its memories and all its glories. 
From Pompeii that point of Misenum was visible, the 
tomb of one of the companions of ^neas, which the 
poet had mentioned in his works, and it was near those 
Phlegrean fields where he had placed the entrance to 
Hell. Thus the knowledge of the JEneid was very 
widely spread among the Pompeians of all classes. 
What well shows this is that inscriptions scribbled 
upon the walls, which can only be the work of school- 
boys or men of the people, often contain verses of it. 
It was known by heart, people loved to quote it, and 
even the unlettered had some acquaintance with it. 
But it is probable that in a town where Virgil seems 
to have been so popular, people would have liked to 
have some of the scenes described by him represented 
upon the walls of their houses. If the painters have 
hardly ever done so, if they have rarely placed before 
the Pompeians subjects borrowed from their favourite 
poet, or mementoes of their natural history, it is 
because the art which they practised had remained 
Greek, that it was known to be shut up in its traditions 
and its habits, and nobody required it to leave them. 

With poetry it was not the same, and it is this 
which distinguishes it from painting. Although it 
also came from Greece, it consented with a good grace, 
and almost at once, to become Eoman. Nsevius uses 
the forms of the Homeric Epos for the purpose of 
celebrating the heroes of ancient Kome, while the 



416 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

tragic method of Sophocles lends itself to sing the 
exploits of Decius, of Paulus ^milius, and of Brutus. 
This mixture reached its perfection in Virgil's jEneicl. 
Nowhere did the traditions of the two countries, the 
genius of the two peoples, and their two antiquities, 
more harmoniously blend them in Virgil's poem, and 
this it is which makes its admirable beauty. At that 
moment Eome appears prouder than ever of her past, 
and more busied with her history. The Emperor, who 
has taken away its freedom, stimulates its national 
pride. In order to fill its imagination and assuage 
its regrets, he constantly shows it the immensity of 
its territory, extending to the limits of the civilized 
world, and recalls the heroic manner of its conquest. 
In order to dissimulate the newness of its insti- 
tutions he surrounds himself with the great men of 
ancient times, puts himself in their company, and 
boldly presents himself as their follower. A kind of 
watchword then went forth to all the poets to unite 
in the eulogy of the prince that of the heroes of the 
Eepublic and the memories of ancient Eome. Not 
one of them neglected to do so. Even the most trivial, 
who had never busied themselves with aught save 
their amours, assumed a grave tone, and mingled their 
light verses with patriotic songs. Propertius, a prudent 
man, had settled the employment of all his life in 
advance. He purposed : " When age should have chased 
away pleasures and sown his head with white hairs, 
to enquire out the laws of nature, find how this great 
house of the world is governed, study the principles 
which direct the course of the moon, whence come 
eclipses and storms, why the rainbow drinks the waters 



POMPEII. 417 

of the rain, and what is the cause of the underground 
agitations which make the high mountains tremble." ^ 
In other terms, he meant to remain a true Alexandrian 
to the end of his days, only proposing to pass with age 
from the elegies of Callimachus to the didactic poetry 
of Aratus. Yet he did not withstand the solicitations 
of Maecenas, and he, too, ended by celebrating the 
ancient traditions of Eome, " and putting all the breath 
that issued from his feeble bosom at the service of his 
country." Thus it is that the elegy — that is to say, the 
species of poetry which the Eomans had most directly 
borrowed from the Alexandrians — at length mixed 
novelties with its imitations, and by dint of celebrating 
the great memories of the national history, became 
Eoman in its turn. 

So it may be said, with perfect truth, that the Latin 
poetry of the great age is best appreciated by compari- 
son with contemporary painting. They issued from the 
same source, but they took different ways, and they 
elucidate each other both by their relations and their 
differences. When we see with what obstinacy painting 
remained entirely Greek, we render better justice to the 
efforts made by poetry to adapt itself to the country 
into which it had come to settle. These efforts gave 
it an element of strength and life which it is not 
possible to mistake. By becoming Eoman, by flatter- 
ing the national pride, and by endeavouring to respond 
to popular feeling, it rendered its action upon the 
crowd more potent. In this respect it was original 
and owed nothing to the school of Alexandria, which 

1 Propertius, III. 5, 23. 

2d 



418 AKCHiEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

never had these patriotic impulses. As for all that 
mythology which it too easily borrowed, and which 
we now find so fiat and obscure, the Eomans must 
assuredly have taken less interest in it than the Greeks, 
with whom it was born ; but to think it was quite 
indifferent or unknown to them, were to mistake. 
Painting had long since popularised it among them. 
It is impossible to ascertain at what point of time Greek 
artists entered Eome and began to exercise their calling 
there, but it must have been early. Plautus tells us 
of pictures which in his time adorned private houses, 
and which represented Venus with Adonis, or the 
eagle carrying off Ganymede.^ In Terence, a lover who 
hesitated to commit a very bad action, relates that he 
lost all his scruples after seeing on the walls of a 
temple Jupiter seducing Danse.^ These are the sub- 
jects most often found in the towns of Campania. 
Thus, for several centuries, painters had ornamented 
public and private buildings with them ; the eye and 
the mind had become accustomed to see them ; even the 
ignorant and unlettered were grown insensibly familiar 
with them, and poetry, which was to take them up in 
its turn, found a public already prepared in advance, 
and much more extensive than is believed. Then 
something happened much like what took place with 
us, when the tragic poets of the seventeenth century 
put Augustus or Agamemnon upon the stage. These 
Greek and Eoman personages were not strangers to 
the spectators. Classical education, on which all 

1 Plautus, Menaxhmi., 1, 2, 34. Merc, 2, 2, 42. 

2 Terence, Eun. , 3, 5, 36. 



* POMPEII. 419 

France was formed, rendered these names familiar to 
those who frequented the theatre. The clerk who for 
fifteen sous purchased the right to kiss Corneille was 
as well acquainted with them as the magistrates and 
the great lords. People knew their history better than 
that of the heroes of ancient France, and were more 
familiar with them. Some critics imagine that by treat- 
ing subjects taken from antiquity, our poets condemned 
themselves to work for a small number of persons^ 
This is a great mistake : they addressed all. The 
schools had made them a vast public, prepared to 
understand and disposed to applaud. 

V. 

THE BURGHEES OF POMPEII — THE POOR — WHERE DID 
THEY LIVE ? — INNS AND TAVERNS — OCCUPATIONS 
AND PLEASURES COMMON TO THE POOR AND THE 
RICH — THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS — THE SHOWS — 
HOW MAY WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE INNER 
LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS ? — THE INSCRIPTIONS AND 
" GRAFFITI " — THE SERVICES THEY RENDER US. 

From these general considerations, which have in some 
measure turned us aside from our subject, let us go 
back to Pompeii and its inhabitants. The paintings 
which I have just been studying at such length, and 
which teach us so many things concerning ancient art, 
also give us some curious information about the city 
where they were found. Although it may be said that 
painters were then extremely numerous, and worked 
very cheaply, it is still clear that in order to think of 
having one's apartments decorated with elegant frescoes, 



420 ARCHiEOLOGlCAL RAMBLES. 

it was necessary to be in the enjoyment of a certain 
ease. On this reckoning, there must have been a great 
many well-to-do people at Pompeii. The considerable 
number of houses containing interesting paintings 
proves how fortune was spread there. Moreover, all the 
studies hitherto made lead to this conclusion. M. Mssen, 
the patient investigator of these ruins, has confirmed 
that from the time of the Empire the taste for luxury at 
Pompeii seems to grow year by year. Private houses 
become more and more beautiful and ornate, while 
public buildings are continually enlarged. What he 
called the monument fever (DenJcmalsJieher), " one of 
the chronic maladies of ancient democracies," pro- 
gressed there every day.^ Parvenus desired to display 
their sudden fortunes by building or reiDairing temples, 
and they caused statues to be decreed to them by the 
councils of the town, or the corporations whom they 
protected. Beside the ancient nobility, there rose a 
citizen class, rich, important, jealous of consideration, 
partial to splendour and pomp, and, above all, very 
numerous, which lived freely, loved well-being, and was 
desirous to allow itself some of those enjoyments and 
privileges hitherto reserved for the great families. 

And the poor ? they doubtless existed at Pompeii, as 
elsewhere — more than elsewhere, perhaps. It was, as 
we have seen, an industrious town, and one which did 
a great deal of business. Independently of its maritime 
commerce, it produced in abundance wine and fruit, 
which it exported to the other towns of Italy. Pliny 
and Columella tell us that, especially, its cabbages were 

^ Pompeianischen Stvdien., p. 373. 



POMPEII. 421 

famous. A kind of sauce or seasoning called garum 
was also made there, with salted fish, which was the 
delight of epicures. It is natural that in a commercial 
town there should have been a great number of work- 
men. At Pompeii, as everywhere else, they had their 
regulations, their feasts, and their places of meeting. 
We know those of the goldsmiths, the wood merchants, 
and the muleteers, who take part in the elections and 
recommend their candidates.^ It has also been conjec- 
tured that the cloth factories, fuUeries, and dyeing- 
houses had also attained a certain importance there. 
Below this highest stratum of commerce, all those 
small industries were carried on, which then, as in our 
days, filled Italian streets with movement and noise. 
There were sellers of cakes, of sausages, of frutti di 
mare, who each, as Seneca tells us, advertised his wares 
in a particular tone and with a different cry.^ They 
were called at Pompeii, people of the Forum (forenscs) 
because they stand in public places. A curious picture 
shows us a cook, who has taken up his position in the 
open air, near his boiling saucepan, and is surrounded 
by a crowd of people who appear drawn by the savoury 
smell of his cooking. At the end of a stick he has a 
little copper cup, with which he draws from his sauce- 
pan what he sells to his customers.^ This is a scene 



^ Some of these corporations, which did not include workmen of the 
same industry, but simply people who wished to live gaily together, 
bore strange names, like those which the Academicians of the Renais- 
sance gave themselves. There is the society of sleepers {dormientes), 
that of late drinkers (seribibi), and even that of cut-purses {/urunculi). 

2 Seneca, Epist. 56, 2. 

3 See Otto Jahn, Ueber Darstell. dcs Haiidwerks, etc., plate 3, No. 8. 



422 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. 

that may be enjoyed every day in the markets of 
Naples. 

The quarters where all these poor people dwelt have 
not yet been discovered. The smallest and most 
simply decorated houses yet excavated are not quite 
what we call houses of the poor. Perhaps some of 
them lived in those upper floors with terraces {ccenacula 
cum j)crgidis) which are occasionally mentioned in 
letting-bills. Unfortunately, only the ground floors 
of the Pompeian houses have been preserved ; the rest 
has disappeared almost everywhere. Until the popular 
quarters are reached, the presence and habits of the 
lower orders can scarcely be revealed by anything 
except the places they delighted to frequent — here, as 
everywhere, the public-houses and taverns. At Pompeii 
there is no lack of these. At the entrance of the town 
are found hostelries intended for the peasants of the 
neighbourhood when they came to sell their wares or 
buy what they needed. Before the doors the pavement 
is lowered, in order that the cars may be able to enter 
the stables. It would have been inconvenient for them 
to circulate in the narrow streets of the town, where 
two vehicles would have found it difficult to pass 
abreast, so it was found more simple to leave them at 
the inn. These hostelries contain very small chambers, 
where travellers passed the night when obliged to pro- 
long their stay. In some cases they have left their 
names upon the wall, with reflections which do not 
lack interest. It may well be thought that they are 
not great personages who content themselves with such 
poor lodgings. Among the number there are a Prae- 
torian soldier on furlough, pantomimists come to give 



POMPEII. 423 

exhibitions, an inhabitant of Puteoli, who profits by 
the occasion to wish all kinds of prosperity to his 
native land {Colonice Glaudice Neronensi Puteolance; 
feliciter /), and a lover, who informs us that he has 
passed the night all alone, and that he has pined much 
for his charmer ( Vihius Beditutus hie solus dormivit et 
Urbanam suam desiderahat)} 

So here we are evidently in the company of very in- 
significant people. Those who haunted the taverns could 
scarcely have been more distinguished. At Pompeii 
the houses where hot drinks {thermopolia) were sold 
are very numerous. As with us, they are usually 
found at the places where there are most passers, and 
especially at the corners made by the junction of two 
streets. Before the door is placed a marble counter, 
with round openings, in which the vessels containing 
the drinks were placed, and little shelves on which 
glasses of different forms and sizes were to be ranged. 
This was for people in a hurry, who had not time to 
enter the shop, and desired to drink without stopping. 
If they were at leisure, and wished to be more at their 
ease, they went and sat down at the tables, in other 
rooms beyond the shops. Just such a shop as this was 
discovered a few years ago. It was decorated with 
curious paintings, well indicating both what kind of 
public frequented it, and that it was at the same time 
a gaming-house and a place of evil resort. One of 
these paintings shows the female servants of the tavern 
amusing themselves with the customers, pursuing them, 
embracing them, and inciting them to drink. Another 

1 Corp. insc. lat, IV. 2146. 



424 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

represents two bearded men with a gaming-table on 
their knees, and playing at dice. Both appear very 
animated. One seems triumphant at the good stroke 
he has just made, while the other shakes the dice in 
the box, in hopes of making a better stroke yet. In 
the next picture we have two players disputing. They 
load each other with gross abuse, reproduced by an 
inscription placed above their heads. At the noise the 
tavern keeper runs up, and with great politeness and 
in a respectful posture, begs them " to go and fight 
outside the door." 

The various classes of Pompeian society of whom we 
have just made separate studies, did not always live 
apart from each other. There were frequent occupa- 
tions and pleasures which brought them together. 
First of all, they were assembled by the care of public 
affairs and the election of magistrates. In these, all 
bore their parts, and after what would at first sight 
appear to be a very active fashion. While going over 
Pompeii, one's eyes are at every movement attracted by 
electoral posters ; there is hardly a street in which one 
is not met with. In Paris the authorities take the 
trouble to have them torn down when the elections 
are over, but there are country towns where they 
remain for a long time upon the walls. This is what 
happened at Pompeii, and there are some several years 
behind-hand. They do not, like ours, contain pro- 
fessions of faith, in which the candidate sets forth his 
opinions. It is his neighbours, his friends, his proteges, 
who recommend him to the electors, affirming that he 
is a very good man and worthy of the functions to 
which he aspires. To read these numerous announce- 



POMPEII. 425 

ments, and observe the eagerness of so many persons 
to extol their candidates, one were tempted to think 
that the elections must have been very animated, and 
that the public offices of these small towns were com- 
peted for with ardour. This, doubtless, must often have 
been the case, but in certain election advertisements of 
Pompeii more of politeness is found than of politics. 
Some are the work of important personages who were 
candidates in preceding years, or soon will be such, and 
who wish either to requite a service or prepare them- 
selves support. This exchange of good offices is dis- 
played in quite a visible manner. A kind friend, who 
desires to gain someone over for the candidature which 
he is backing, tells him without ceremony : " Proculus, 
name Sabinus asdile; afterwards he will name thee 
thyself." ^ But oftener it is more humble folks — clients, 
people under an obligation, who would fain testify 
their gratitude and pay their debt after this clamorous 
fashion. The public offices cost so dearly that can- 
didates could not always have been very numerous. 
It was, perhaps, because they had few competitors 
and their election was not doubtful, that they desired 
that it should at least appear to be the expression of 
the general will. The honour for them was less in the 
feebly-contested election itself, than in these manifesta- 
tions which heightened its Mat and made its value. 
This is why the citizens thought themselves obliged to 
recommend themselves so vigorously to each other, 
although everybody was disposed to appoint them. 



^ Corp. insc. lat., IV. 645 : Sdbinum osdilevi, Prociile fac, et ille 
te faciei. 



426 ARCH^-OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

When the impulse had seemedgeneral,and opinion had de- 
clared itself noisily, the duumvir or the ccdile was prouder 
of his success, and more disposed to acknowledge the 
good-will of his fellow-citizens by enormous liberalities. 
Among these liberalities, those most pleasing to the 
people were the public games with which they were 
regaled. They had always been much loved in Eome, 
and were still more in favour in the country towns, 
where pleasures were fewer and life more monotonous. 
There were several kinds of them. First the scenic, 
for which two theatres were built at Pompeii, still in 
existence, I do not know whether many tragedies and 
comedies were acted in them, but certainly mimes 
must have been played. This little refined species of 
entertainment, which did not call for much literature, 
and was within the grasp of all, met with a good re- 
ception everywhere. Young people, especially, took 
pleasure in them, because, contrary to the general 
custom of the stage, the female parts were iilled by 
women, these women being of easy morals, and an 
intrigue with a pretty actress a marvellous way of en- 
livening country life. Cicero said of one of his clients, 
whose youth had not been irreproachable : " He is 
accused of having carried off an actress ; this is an 
amusement sanctioned by custom, especially in the 
municijjia." ^ So pantomime was very much in vogue. 
It must have pleased at Pompeii, as elsewhere, and we 
know that Pylades, the great actor of Eome, came to 
give a few performances there, in the theatre erected 
by Holconius, 

^ Cicero, Pro. Plane, 12. 



POMPEII. 429 

who thus enriched the walls with their masterpieces. 
Children who were allowed to get hold of a piece of 
charcoal or chalk sketched a gladiator, as they now 
draw a soldier, and it is curious to remark that the 
manner in which those young hands proceed has not 
changed. The method is the same, and soldiers and 
gladiators resemble each other; the forehead and the 
nose always being represented by a line more or less 
straight, while two dots do duty for the eyes. How- 
ever, some of these unfashioned sketches are not devoid 
of a certain comic meaning. I recommend to those 
who may have the plates of Father Garrucci before 
them, the arrogant attitude and bullying mien of 
Asteropoeus the Neronian, doubtless proud of his 106 
victories (p. 11), and, above all, the stoutness of 
Achilles, surnamed the invincible (p. 12), whose 
sleek condition shows us that one did not always 
grow thin in this terrible trade. 

Thus far, only the exterior life of the Pompeians 
has been in question, and it is that which, from the 
distance, is best seen. We follow them easily enough 
to the JForum and the theatre ; it is less easy to pene- 
trate into their homes. After the lapse of several 
centuries, it is always rather difficult to insinuate 
oneself into the private life of nations, to guess their 
intimate sentiments, their mutual relationship, their 
hates, their affections, their joys and their secret 
sorrows — all that the novel alone preserves and teaches 
to posterity. Yet we are much more fortunate at 
Pompeii than elsewhere. The abundance of the 
inscriptions discovered there enables us at least to 
divine what we cannot quite get to know, and enables 



430 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

US to sketch a few little broken-off romances which 
our fancy finishes and with which our curiosity is 
charmed. 

Inscriptions were the only means of information 
and publicity then possessed, so they were very 
numerous in ancient cities. At Pompeii, three different 
kinds of them are found. Firstly, those graven on 
marble or stone, sometimes on the pediments of 
temples to inform us who built them, at others on the 
bases of statues, to tell us the names of the personages 
they represent, and the offices they filled. These 
inscriptions were designed to live as long as the 
monuments which bore them, and chance, in pre- 
serving them for us, has committed no indiscretion. 
Then there were those painted with a brush on the 
walls of houses or porticoes. These, much more 
curious than the former, played the part of the 
bills of our time. We have already spoken of those 
used to recommend candidates to the choice of the 
electors, or to announce the da}'- and the programme 
of the spectacles. It is by means of them, also, that 
a landlord informed the public that he had an apart- 
ment to let for the Calends of July or the Ides of 
August, and that an innkeeper invited travellers to 
lodge with him, promising them a good dinner and all 
kinds of comforts (pninia commoda pi-cestantia), and they 
are also used to advertise things stolen or lost, and to 
offer a decent reward to him who shall cause their 
recovery. " An urn of wine has disappeared from the 
shop ; he who brings it back shall receive 65 sesterces 
(13 francs) ; if he brings the thief, he will be given 
double." The third species of inscriptions contains 



POMPEII. 431 

those which were simply traced in charcoal or graven 
with the point of a nail or a knife, either by the 
amorous who indulged in the pleasure of saluting their 
sweethearts by the way, or by some joker whom it 
pleases to inform us that he has the phlegm, or who 
unceremoniously treats as barbarians those who are so 
ill-bred as not to invite him to dinner, or by some 
wags, from whom we gather that Epaphra is a debauchee ; 
that Sua vis, the female wine merchant, is always athirst, 
and that Oppius is a thief. These graffiti, as they are 
called in Italy, were not made to come down to our 
days. The destruction of Pompeii has preserved them 
for us, and this is a great piece of good fortune. Truly, 
one little thinks how many things those scraps of 
boyish mischief, which garnish the walls where the 
police are tolerant, might teach posterity, if they got so 
far. It is without any doubt they which enable us 
to enter most deeply into the private life of the 
Pompeians. 

In the graffiti of Pompeii a little of everything is 
found, even down to a washing-bill ; ^ but what oftenest 
comes up is love. The goddess Venus was the patroness 
of the town ; a patroness much respected, and invoked 
on all occasions. The people who ask you to vote for 
their candidate are careful to promise you the protection 
of Venus.2 One of those impromptu artists of whom I 
have spoken, who chalked gladiators everywhere, finds no 
better means of protecting his drawing than to devote to 
the anger of the Pompeian Venus him who shall venture 
to touch it (Ahiat Venere Pompeiana iratam qui hoc 

1 Cwp. i'lisc. lat., IV. 1393. =^ lb., 25. 



432 ARCHiEOLOGICAT, RAMCLES. 

loBserit)} Lucian informs us that it was then customary 
to write declarations of love upon the walls. There 
are many of them at Pompeii, and their orthography 
being very varied, we may conclude from this that 
they were written by people belonging to different 
classes of society. Some, in order to celebrate their 
beloved one, are content to borrow lines from authors 
of renown, and, above all, from Propertius and Ovid. 
He was " the poet of light loves," and among young 
people none was more in vogue. At other times, the 
verses are drawn from writers now lost. A few even 
seem to be composed expressly for the occasion, and 
some of these are not badly turned for country verses. 
" May I die," says the happy lover, "if I would wish to 
be a god without thee ! " {Ah ! peream sine te si deus 
esse vdim ! ) " Hither to me, enamoured ones ! " says 
the irritated swain. " I mean to break Venus's ribs." 
[Qiiisquis amat veniat, Veneri volo rumpere costas.)^ 
Some very pretty ones were found not long ago, 
certainly by a genius of the country. A lover is 
addressing the coachman who drives him. " Muleteer," 
he tells him, " if thou felt the fires of love, thou 
wouldst haste thee more to join thy adored one. 
Prithee, quicken thy pace ; come, thou hast drunk well, 
take thy whip and wield it, bring me swiftly to 
Pompeii, where my dear amours await me!"^ More 
often, the declarations are in prose. Sometimes it is 
the lover who gently supplicates. " My dear Sava, 

^ Corp. insc. Za^.,538. I change nothing ofthis barbarous Latin. 

2 Corp. insc. kit., 1928 and 1824. 

' Bull. dell, instit. di corr. arch., 1877, Nov. 



POMPEIL 433 

love me, I pray thee ! '' At others it is the loved one 
who answers : " Nonia salutes her friend Pagurus." 
These lovers have at times a delicacy of expression, 
and even something of refinement, which reminds us 
that we are in the age of Petronius. " My little doll, 
who art so pretty, he who belongs to thee entirely sends 
me to thee." ^ I prefer this more simple declaration, 
in which the heart appears to me to speak with greater 
frankness: "Methea, the player of Atellante, loves 
Chrestus with all her heart. May Venus favour them, 
and may they ever live in amity ! " '^ And let us not 
forget this dismissal, given in due form to a wretched 
lover, and quite unanswerable : " Virgula, to her 
friend Tertius : thou art too ugly ! " ( Virgula Tertio 
SILO : indecens es !) ^ 

Of course I cannot quote all. I desire not to avail 
myself too freely of the permission granted to Latin to 
brave decency. If I dared put before my reader's eyes 
those libertine inscriptions which agree so well with 
the paintings of the secret museum, I should give him 
I fear, a very bad idea of the morality of the in- 
habitants of Pompeii, and, unhappily, this idea would 
be a true one. It was then generally pretended that 
morals were much better in the country than in Eome. 
Tacitus and Pliny everywhere delight to extol the 
decent and frugal life of the Italian municipia, and, to 
hear them, it would appear as though Eome were the 
rendezvous of all the vices, and virtue began just 
beyond the walls of Servius. I am very much afraid 



1 C'orjo. insc. laU, IV. 1134. 
"^ lb., 2457. '^ lb., 18S1. 

2e 



434 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. 

that there must be in this opinion a little of that 
illusion which makes us think we should be far better 
off everywhere where we are not. At any rate, it was 
not true of the town we are just studying. Possibly 
virtue was not found in Eome, but it is certain that 
Pompeii was not the place to look for it. This 
charming town was situated in an enchanting country, 
where everything inclines to voluptuousness : " Where 
the velvet-like sheen of the fields, the tepid warmth 
of the air, the rounded outlines of the mountains, the 
soft windings of the rivers and the valleys, are so many 
seductions for the senses, which everything lulls to 
repose, and upon which nothing jars." It was near 
Naples, already called lazy Naples (otiosa Neapolis), 
which so well justifies the proverb that idleness is the 
mother of all the vices. It lay opposite to Baise — the 
most beautiful place in the world, but one of the most 
corrupted — to Baite, of which Martial says that the 
Penelopes who were so unfortunate as to venture thither 
became Helens.^ All therefore combined to make of 
this country a sojourn dangerous to virtue, and in- 
scriptions as well as monuments prove to us that 
Pompeii had not resisted these powerful seductions of 
climate and example. 

We see what services we gather from these election- 
bills, these gay or serious advertisements, these jokes 
chalked up in passing by school-boys for fun, these 
simple or gross reflections of lovers or libertines. We 
possess the streets and houses of Pompeii, but empty 
and mute ; the inscriptions and the graffiti seem to give 

1 Martial, I. 63. 



POMPEII. 435 

us back the inhabitants. Pompeii comes to life again 
and is repeoplecl as we read them. We are no longer 
in the midst of ruins drawn with great difficulty from 
the ashes which had covered them during eighteen 
hundred years, but in a living town ; and, as we pass 
through it, it teaches us, much better than books, what 
was done, what was thought, and how life passed in a 
country town in the first century of our era. 



THE END. 



'^^^. 









.i.^ 



^ * ^ 



\^ 










^^' ^-^ 









o 







^0 O, " ^'._ 



'°'l^ * .0 N - \V ^ 



.A^' 












.0- V 



^^^ "'^ 



,x^- 






^Ni , » <, , <^ a s o , \ 



. .^^■ 






-^^'^.s:^^ ^-^ 



% 






. ,^^ 

■s"^-^. 



.0^ „c "_ ■■ ^^ -^P^ ,^>?s 






^ c ^ ■<. 



OO 






^^.. ^ .^ ^ -^ 



-1 ^ ^M-J-- « .-. 



c*u. *- 



■i\- 






'/ o 



■ 0^ 





.^* 


<i^ 

,0^", 


% 






.4 






CV, A^^ 






,^^ '^^r.. 



>0o 



■^^ 



■^■^ 






.^'^^■% 






xV' 










* 






V 


■ -p 





>p°^. 









v\ ' V 1 



', -^^ <^ :".»<: 



^/- V 



^0 „ ziJ: « 






■^- ,^^^ 



.v\-'' -"^r- 



'<, ''^<. 



^>, 






.0^ 


















^\ = .r^ 



V 



^^^ -^^^ 



.<^--''t.. 



, s ' ' / 



3 <?> 



A^- '-^v. 



-v 



N C ^ <^ ■> ^' ■ . 



'''^i^' 



■^ '- 



A^^ 






.■A 



■V^ s 



\' ^ 3 






-X^ ^ 



%. .c'^' 









'^sfe^FJ^>J«^'' ■* 






,^:~ '-^ 



'^ ,^\\^ 



-x^' --^ 



J 1, t, '^ \^ 



' V *> 



,N-C^ ■'''^> 



